Research firm Chainbound successfully raised $4.6 million in a seed funding round, with Cyber Fund taking the lead.
In the rapidly evolving world of blockchain technology, privacy remains a significant concern for many users. To address this issue, a new off-chain payment channel protocol called Bolt has been introduced by Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake.
Bolt is a privacy-focused, off-chain payment channel protocol inspired by the Lightning Network but built with enhanced anonymity using zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKS). It allows users on Ethereum and other blockchains to conduct fast, low-cost transactions off-chain without revealing wallet addresses or linking payments, thereby preserving user privacy even against the transacting parties themselves.
The seed round for Bolt was led by Cuyber Fund, with participation from Maven 11, Robot Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Hasu (from Flashbot), Kubi Mensah, and Mike Neuder as angel investors. The raised funds will be used to accelerate the development of Bolt.
How Bolt Works
Bolt works by implementing zk-SNARKS in every payment channel, enabling users to transfer value in a way that keeps both the amounts and the participants’ identities confidential. It uses blind signatures to have users sign transactions without knowing their specifics and commitments to hide transaction values within the channel. This ensures that even payments made over the same channel cannot be linked or traced back to participants, addressing a crucial privacy limitation in traditional payment channel networks like the Lightning Network, which expose wallet addresses and payment paths.
Key Benefits of Bolt
The privacy-centric design of Bolt enables it to support confidential payments potentially useful in stablecoin marketplaces and other use cases demanding both speed and strong anonymity. Bolt prioritizes privacy-first off-chain settlement of payments, allowing fast finalization without on-chain delays and with strong anonymity guarantees.
Preconfirmations and User Experience
Bolt enables sub-second transaction pre-confirmations by communicating directly with block proposers. Preconfirmations allow users to receive transaction confirmations before they are added to an Ethereum block, improving user experience by remodeling how transactions are added into blocks.
Future Developments
The Bolt Protocol is expected to go live on the Ethereum mainnet by the end of the year. Besides Bolt, Chainbound, the company developing Bolt, is also working on Fiber, a high-speed network for Ethereum transactions and blocks, and Echo, a unified interface for transaction dispatch to block builders.
With the growing demand for privacy in the blockchain space, Bolt promises to be a significant step forward in ensuring user anonymity while maintaining fast and cost-effective transactions. As it moves towards mainnet launch, the potential impact of Bolt on the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond is an exciting development to watch.
Bolt, a new off-chain payment channel protocol, leverages zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKS) for enhanced anonymity and allows users to conduct fast, low-cost transactions without revealing wallet addresses or linking payments, finding potential use in stablecoin marketplaces and other privacy-sensitive applications.
Built with privacy in mind, Bolt offers off-chain settlement of payments with fast finalization, strong anonymity guarantees, and sub-second transaction pre-confirmations by communicating directly with block proposers, aiming to improve user experience. As it approaches mainnet launch, Bolt is anticipated to be a significant step forward in ensuring user anonymity while maintaining fast and cost-effective transactions, particularly in the realm of finance and technology.
