Mina Foundation, the organization serving the Mina Protocol, along with o1Labs, the software company that incubated Mina Protocol, is collaborating with Celestia to integrate Celestia’s modular Data Availability (DA) layer with Mina Protocol. Geometry Research, a team of experts specializing in cryptographic proofs, has been jointly selected to build the integration, utilizing state of the art research.
The integration of Celestia’s modular DA layer with Mina’s zero-knowledge (ZK) native blockchain advances the functionalities and performance of zkApps (zero-knowledge applications) built on Mina, offering a seamlessly programmable component within Mina’s existing developer toolkit to enable higher throughput. In practice, the modular DA layer is advantageous for projects that need to verify large amounts of off-chain data and scale users. Under the hood, this integration is powered by Succinct’s Blobstream X and sets the stage for verifying foreign proving system proofs on Mina.
This collaboration commences as the Mina ecosystem approaches a major mainnet upgrade that will enable zkApp programmability – a move targeted at substantially increasing developer activity and the number of products built on Mina as the first ecosystem to offer zero knowledge smart contracts in production.
Kurt Hemecker, CEO of the Mina Foundation said, “Our mission is to simplify the developer experience for those building zero-knowledge applications. zkApps have immense potential to address core issues around data protection, scalability, proof of identity, and much more, but their integration in web applications has been slowed down by a lack of efficient and easy-to-use tooling for developers. Breaking down these barriers is a top priority, and the addition of this highly requested feature to the Mina developer toolkit will significantly enhance the scope and capabilities of zkApp builders on Mina, advancing a new era of the internet that puts users back in control.”
Laying the groundwork for a number of projects seeking to scale operations in the ZK space, plans to leverage the modular DA layer are already underway. Zeko Protocol, a cross-chain zero-knowledge scaling protocol built on Mina, which recently raised a $3 million pre-seed funding round, aims to use enhanced data availability to support the next generation of ZK applications that will shape the future of decentralized finance, AI, gaming, and the internet.
Brandon Kase, CEO of o1Labs, elaborated, “We are thrilled to be a part of this collaboration which aims to eliminate the complexities of zkApp development. Leveraging the experience of the Geometry Research team, pioneering experts in zk-SNARKs, this Celestia integration has the power to significantly improve the capabilities of zkApps.”
