Layer-one ecosystem ZetaChain raises $27 million in round led by Blockchain.com
“ZetaChain’s purpose is to simplify managing assets and data across multiple blockchains, which remains a complicated and fragmented process that’s hindering hundreds of millions of new users joining the web3 ecosystem. Our EVM-compatible cross-chain smart contracts alleviate these issues by allowing decentralized app developers to build services that are faster, more secure, and easy to use.”
ZetaChain has announced it has closed a $27 million equity funding round from a range of top participants, including Blockchain.com, Human Capital, VY Capital, Sky9 Capital, Jane Street Capital, VistaLabs, CMT Digital, Foundation Capital, Lingfeng Capital, GSR, and Kudasai, Krust.
The layer-one blockchain that brings universal interoperability to crypto was founded in 2021 and now has close to 150 contributors from all over the world, including Ankur Nandwani (ex-Coinbase, Brave, 0x, and co-founder of Basic Attention Token), Panruo Wu (early contributor to THORchain), and Brandon Truong (ex-BuzzFeed, Udacity, Yada).
The ZetaChain ecosystem has more than 27,000 dApp contracts currently deployed on the platform, representing a diverse range of third-party decentralized applications, including cross-chain DeFi, NFTs, universal web3 social, identity, and gaming protocols.
More than 1.7 million users have participated on the ZetaChain testnet, which has seen over 13 million transactions completed to date.
ZetaChain wants a new standard for blockchain interoperability
The goal of ZetaChain is to establish a new standard for blockchain interoperability and enable users to manage all of their assets and data from a single platform, regardless of the blockchain they were created or stored on, and without the need for bridges or wrapped tokens.
This includes non-smart contract chains like the Bitcoin network and Dogecoin. Standardized interoperability provides developers with significant advantages as they can manage a single contract for all chains and reduce the attack surface.
ZetaChain’s Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible smart contract layer and omnichain toolkit empower developers to seamlessly implement Bitcoin smart contracts. This unlocks a whole world of users who were previously solely in Bitcoin, enabling them to utilize their Bitcoin within the broader DeFi ecosystem.
“Simplify managing assets and data across multiple blockchains”
Ankur Nandwani, core contributor at ZetaChain, said: “ZetaChain’s purpose is to simplify managing assets and data across multiple blockchains, which remains a complicated and fragmented process that’s hindering hundreds of millions of new users joining the web3 ecosystem. Our EVM-compatible cross-chain smart contracts alleviate these issues by allowing decentralized app developers to build services that are faster, more secure, and easy to use.”
ZetaChain was built on top of the Cosmos SDK and Tendermint Consensus, which provide fast block time and instant finality, to overcome the limitations of traditional cross-chain solutions.
Instead of operating as a bridge that relies on centralized trust models, making it susceptible to security breaches, ZetaChain operates as a transparent Proof-of-Stake blockchain, ensuring complete transparency, verifiability, and trust-minimized functionality for all transactions and activities, including cross-chain transactions.
