Polygon Labs has acquired blockchain research and engineering firm Toposware, marking its third investment in zero-knowledge (ZK) startups over the past three years. 

Toposware has been collaborating with Polygon Labs to develop its Type 1 Prover, which allows Ethereum-compatible blockchains to adopt zero-knowledge proofs without needing major changes. With the acquisition, 11 engineers from Toposware will integrate with the existing ZK development teams on Polygon.

Polygon says the deal brings its cumulative investment in ZK technology to over $1 billion. In 2021, Polygon acquired two other companies working on Ethereum scalability and privacy, Mir and Hermez, for a combined $650 million through multiple transactions.

ZK technology allows one party to prove to another that a statement is true without revealing additional information. In blockchain, this improves privacy by allowing transaction validation without disclosing details of the transaction itself.

“We are always exploring potential acquisitions to strengthen our ZK research and development efforts,” a spokesperson for Polygon told Cointelegraph, adding that no other deals are being considered at the moment. “ZK technology is propelling our efforts on multiple fronts.”

Web3 services alone are predicted to require approximately 90 billion ZK-proofs by 2030, equivalent to 83,000 transactions per second. Several crypto firms are working on ZK technology, including StarkWare and Matter Labs.

A trademark dispute has recently erupted over ZK technology as Matter Labs, the company behind the layer-2 solution zkSync, attempted to obtain intellectual property rights to trademark the term “ZK.”

The company dropped the request shortly thereafter, following backlash from researchers and the crypto community. For Polygon, the move was meant to “steal” a common good:

“This is a serious issue. They are essentially trying to steal people’s hard work. We believe that ZK is a common good [...] We will explore legal action if necessary. We are glad they have decided to abandon their “ZK” trademark; however, they are seeking other ZK-related trademarks that we still view as highly problematic.”

Magazine: Caitlyn Jenner meme coin ‘mastermind’s’ celebrity price list leaked