Privacy layer-2 blockchain COTI has announced a major grants program in collaboration with Gitcoin. A total of $500K has been placed at the disposal of developers interested in utilizing COTI’s tech to create decentralized solutions that will advance web3 privacy. Many of these envisioned solutions will harness COTI’s underlying Garbled Circuits implementation to provide massively scalable onchain privacy.
Set to commence later this month, the COTI grants program is open to any developers with the skills and creativity to get the most out of COTI’s new tech. While the focus will be on the creation of dapps which provide the clearest demonstration of what Garbled Circuits can do in terms of providing onchain privacy, COTI is also seeking proposals to enhance the tooling available on its L2. It already has a wide range of ecosystem partners supporting its mainnet launch and providing core services, but there’s scope for this to be enhanced through solutions that will address everything from bridging assets to compiling code from pre-made libraries.
What Can Be Created on COTI?
COTI has been talking up its implementation of Garbled Circuits for some time and understandably so. It’s not just the end result it delivers that’s impressive – proof of a piece of data’s validity without disclosing its contents – but the efficiency with which it goes about it. Recent benchmarks published by COTI have shown Garbled Circuits to be 1,000x faster than existing privacy tech such as ZK proofs. It’s a major breakthrough that has the potential to unlock new uses and dramatically enhance existing ones.
While COTI has tried not to limit the scope of its L2 to specific industries or use cases, there is clearly a good fit for activities such as DeFi and RWAs, trading – both crypto and traditional markets – and applications for real-world industries from logistics to healthcare. Essentially, any instance where there is a benefit to using a blockchain for data delivery but a need to keep certain information private is suited to being built on COTI.
Web3 Projects Love Gitcoin Grants
Gitcoin’s grants framework for administering grants programs has proven a big hit with web3 projects. It gives them an effective way to target a massive amount of blockchain developers and to manage the many applications they can expect to field from individuals interested in building with their tech. Applicants are typically screened according to such criteria as their existing portfolio and track record and on the originality and practicality of their proposed solution.
COTI’s implementation of Garbled Circuits provides the basic building block for implementing onchain privacy. But the onus is on developers to use this cornerstone to create dapps that will attract real users and solve real problems. The Gitcoin grants program provides an effective way to accelerate this process while weeding out the lower quality applications, leaving the best to build with the funding they need to bring their ideas to fruition.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
