Miden, an independent blockchain project spun out of Polygon Labs, raises $25 million in a seed round led by a16z Crypto

Miden closed its $25 million seed rounds led by a16z Crypto, 1kx, and Hack VC, with participation from Finality Capital Partners, Symbolic Capital

A16z Crypto-led $25 million investment round into Miden, an independent blockchain project spun out of Polygon Labs.

Miden has closed its $25 million seed rounds led by a16z Crypto, 1kx, and Hack VC, with participation from Finality Capital Partners, Symbolic Capital, P2 Ventures, Delta Fund, MH Ventures, as well as from angel investors, including MakerDAO's Rune Christensen and EigenLayer's Sreeram Kannan.

The startup is building a zero-knowledge (ZK) proof-powered blockchain with a focus on high scalability through its hybrid consensus mode, which moves transaction execution to "edge devices," referring to users' devices, from the mainnet.

Designed for institutions that value confidentiality, Miden will enable applications to perform both public and private transactions in full privacy, according to an April 29 announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Execution on edge devices can help with the "bottlenecks that limit traditional chains," said Bobbin Threadbare, the co-founder at Miden and former engineer at Meta, adding:

"The promise of Web3 is contingent upon building chains capable of handling the same throughput as centralized platforms.

To handle the bottlenecks that limit traditional chains, we're pushing the boundaries of scalability by introducing a hybrid consensus model that moves transaction execution to edge devices."

The $25 million will be used to fund Miden's development, and its mainnet launch is slated for the fourth quarter of 2025.

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Miden is 'the future of blockchains', says Polygon Labs' Nailwal

"Miden is what the future of blockchains looks like. With edge execution at its core, it's not just an upgrade — it's the blueprint for the final form of blockchain architecture," according to Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon Labs.

"Having ambitions to rival Solana, Sui, and Aptos — and to be the epicenter of crosschain liquidity for Agglayer as a native chain and help grow the Agglayer ecosystem— building independently naturally positions Miden to attract the capital and focus needed to compete at the highest level," Nailwal added.

Miden plans to airdrop around 10% of its native tokens to Polygon (POL) tokenholders and stakers to reward its native ecosystem.

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No existing blockchain is ready for mass adoption: Miden co-founder

"The reality is that no existing blockchain is ready for mass adoption," either lacking privacy, scalability, or Web3-native principles such as censorship resistance, according to Miden's Threadbare.

However, Miden's infrastructure may be a "catalyst for large institutional adoption," he claimed, adding:

"Institutions are largely absent from Web3 despite having the capital to deploy. They face critical concerns regarding confidentiality, regulatory compliance, and the ability to integrate existing systems."

Large tech firms joining the space require privacy solutions with regulatory compliance, leaving a significant gap for solutions like Miden, added the co-founder.

Other industry watchers have also criticized the industry's lack of confidentiality for limiting institutional adoption.

Confidential computing technologies such as fully homomorphic encryption could unlock the next $1 trillion worth of capital for the crypto space with continued technological development, Remi Gai, the founder of Inco, told Cointelegraph.