Aleph Zero announces ZK-privacy layer with ‘subsecond’ proving times

Switzerland-based blockchain startup Aleph Zero has launched a testnet for its ZK-privacy layer-2 solution zkOS capable of achieving “subsecond proving times.”

Aleph Zero, a Swiss firm focused on developing privacy-first blockchain solutions, is launching the developer testnet for its Aleph Zero EVM layer-2 solution known as zkOS, which is capable of achieving “subsecond proving times” compared to minutes in other solutions.

Built in partnership with Gelato, a Rollup-as-a-Service provider, zkOS leverages Arbitrum Anytrust DAC, a permissioned set of parties responsible for enforcing data availability in an Arbitrum AnyTrust Protocol chain.

“Privacy will become a major narrative in 2024 and beyond, as more mainstream use cases emerge,” said Gelato founder Luis Schliesske.

The network claims to be capable of generating a block in under 250ms with “near-instant transaction finality,” thereby processing “thousands of transactions per second,” a press release shared with crypto.news reads. The developer mainnet is slated for release in Q3 2024, with further advanced features expected to be available by Q1 2025.

According to the Zug-headquartered firm, initial benchmarks show zkOS zero-knowledge proofs can be executed “in 600-800 ms on MacBooks (M1-M3 processors) using browsers like Safari or Chrome.”

Founded in early 2018, Aleph Zero aims to empower the creation of high-speed and confidential decentralized applications. The company has successfully raised over $14 million through pre-seed and seed funding rounds, alongside community and public sales of its AZERO tokens.