As a strategy to introduce more developers into the Mina Protocol, the Mina Foundation raised $92 million in a round led by both Three Arrow Capital and FTX Ventures. The funds were raised from the sales of tokens, though the discounted price at which the tokens were sold was not disclosed.
Mina Protocol is a blockchain technology that harnesses its Layer-1 network to help software developers model decentralized applications (DApps). The prevalent technology on Mina is the zero-knowledge protocol; users need not divulge private data before access can be granted.
Investors that took part in this round, apart from the co-lead are Blockchain.com, Circle Ventures, Brevan Howard, Alan Howard, Amber Group, Pantera Capital, and a host of others. This is a novel experience for FTX who has never participated in a zero-knowledge protocol funding round.
Co-Founder of Three Arrow Capital, Zhu Su said in a statement that his firm chose to collaborate with other investors on the Mina Protocol to support the Mina ecosystem. He attributed their support to the distinct Layer-1 network which Mina operates from.
The fund is targeted towards expanding Mina Protocol by onboarding more developers to the network. To that effect, every penny of the grant will be distributed as a developer’s grant. The Mina Protocol network intends to regularise the use of its platform, making it hitch-free and easy to navigate.
Chief Executive Officer of Mina Foundation, Evans Shapiro in an interview added the fact that never in history has there been a network that allows regular developers with zero knowledge to operate on its platform. The developer must be a ‘cryptographer’ who is good at the particular type of programming needed for the zero-knowledge proof before he would be granted access. Things are now gradually changing with Mina.
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Currently, with the Mina Foundation raising the $92 million for developers’ grant, any software developer with prior knowledge of JavaScript will be permitted to work on the zero-knowledge proof stack.
Some other zero-knowledge networks have entered into a series of funding rounds including StarkWare, an Israeli-based crypto firm that provides blockchain technology solutions that recently raised $100 million in a Series D funding round. This round raised the valuation of StarkWare to $6 billion.
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