Sovereign Labs is the brainchild of Preston Evans and Cem Özer, two serial entrepreneurs who are dedicated to creating innovative technology products. The company has raised $7.4 million in seed funding from Haun Ventures, co-founders of such successful startups as MongoDB and Eventbrite. With Sovereign Labs’ intelligent software tools, businesses can automate their business processes and optimize their operations for increased efficiency.
The startup is building an “open, interconnected rollup ecosystem” with a software development kit (SDK) to provide a framework for secure and interoperable zero-knowledge rollups. This SDK will enable developers to create applications that can leverage the security and convenience of zero-knowledge rollups, without needing to understand the underlying cryptographic algorithms.
Özer is stating that the goal of sovereign is to make it simple for the average person to use blockchain technology. They believe that rollups and ZK-rollups are the best way to do this, as they make scaling easy for everyone.
Rollups are a great way to add extra functionality and security to an existing blockchain without sacrificing either. They can be used for things like tokens, NFTs, and smart contracts, but they’re cheaper to operate than individual blockchains because they outsource transactions. This makes them ideal for projects that want increased functionality but don’t have the time or money to build their own blockchain from scratch.
The Özer company is hoping to create a universal SDK that will allow Rust developers to develop blockchain applications with ease. The SDK aims to make ZK technology more accessible for development by eliminating the need for expertise in cryptography, allowing any developer to use it without prior knowledge of blockchains.
Ethereum-focused ZK-rollup projects are continuing to develop methods of increasing scalability and security for developers off-chain, with dYdX, Sorare and Immutable all aiming to improve user experiences through other areas too. While the battle for the space is ongoing, these projects are all hopeful that they can lay the groundwork for future industry leaders in a sector that is constantly changing.
If blockchain is going to be adopted in mainstream applications, developers will have to figure out a way to make it scalable. This is critical for applications that are meant to be used by a large number of people, as the fees associated with using blockchain systems today can make them impractical.
Sovereign Labs is a startup focused on helping other companies build and use rollup solutions. They believe that by giving this technology to others, they can help create ecosystems for the technology and make it more available to those who need it. Sovereign Labs also focuses on providing their own rollup solution, so that their customers can have easy access to this powerful technology.
Most mobile development platforms are closed source, which often limits their potential for monetization. However, the company’s SDK framework will be open source, free and “always will be,” which could provide a wealth of opportunities for various businesses to integrate the platform into their products.
For developers who want to create their own ZK-based applications, the current state of rollups will likely remain inaccessible for some time. However, as more frameworks and SDKs are developed to make rollups more accessible, the deployment model is expected to explode in popularity.
