Dec 28, 2022
Manta Network Achievements: A Review of 2022
2022 was a landmark for the Manta community, as we saw Zero Knowledge (ZK) emerge as a leading trend in the cryptocurrency sector. We are pleased to be able to continue building upon this momentum as we move into 2023 and beyond.
We have compiled a selection of our most memorable statistics and highlights from the past year. We are grateful for your support as we continue to grow. While we always enjoy reflecting on our achievements, we remain laser-focused on the future, with exciting plans in the works for 2023.
🖥️ Product
We have made significant progress in driving innovation within our product line and laying the foundation for the future growth of Manta tech. ZK provides a native layer of privacy within the cryptocurrency space and requires a significant amount of BUIDLing. We are proud to have made significant strides in this area, including the implementation of cross-chain transfers, tooling, staking, and the successful completion of the largest trusted setup to date. These achievements represent a significant step forward for our company and the broader industry.
In 2022, we launched what would grow into the largest trusted setup in history with over 4,000 contributors. We brought staking to Calamari and migrated to DPoS. Dolphin ZKP signer was released early this year, and Dolphin v2 has launched and currently sees over 180k transactions and 22,520+ holders. Regarding interoperability, we successfully made Kusama XCM transfers between Calamari, Karura (Acala), and Moonriver (Moonbeam). We are happy to see that the Polkadot ecosystem takes privacy seriously.
📝 Research
At Manta, we are dedicated to advancing not only our own ecosystem but also the broader privacy and ZK landscape within the web3 environment. To that end, we have launched and partnered on various initiatives designed to educate, promote open-source principles, and safeguard privacy. These efforts are a vital part of our mission to drive innovation and progress within the industry.
ZKhouse
ZKhouse is an initiative designed to create dedicated spaces for ZK projects and discussions at major cryptocurrency conferences. Our inaugural ZKhouse took place in Bogota during DevCon, where we were honored to have Edward Snowden as a virtual keynote speaker. This event was a valuable opportunity to bring together leading figures in the ZK community and further advance the conversation around this important technology.
OpenZL
#OpenZL is an initiative that we started to make it easier for devs who aren’t cryptography experts to integrate zero-knowledge proofs into their applications. The goal is to make ZKP accessible not just to cryptographers but to all developers. We celebrated the development milestone of OpenZL with our inaugural OpenZL Conference, and you can learn more about upcoming events here or jump right into our open-source library.
ZPrize
We were the prize architects for accelerating elliptic curve operations and finite field arithmetic (WASM), which offered $750k in prize awards to the winners who could maximize throughput/minimize the latency of these operations on client-type devices and blockchain-based VMs, specifically the WebAssembly (WASM) runtime. More details here: Accelerating Elliptic Curve Operations and Finite Field Arithmetic (WASM) | ZPrize
We also joined forces with cryptographers at Jump Crypto and managed to earn one of the winning spots by innovating and pushing the envelope of this research.
UPA Launch
We teamed up with some of the biggest hitters in the privacy world and launched the Universal Privacy Alliance (UPA), an initiative to advocate privacy in a post-surveillance world.
We officially launched in Bogota along with Nym, Status, Michelle Lai, and guest speaker Edward Snowden. See the recording here.
💃 Events
With the pandemic winding down and opening a window for face-to-face again, we were able to host and attend some great events! We attended 23 IRL events in 13 different countries all over the world.
Here are some of our favorite events in 2022:
- Our first branded Manta Event happened at ETHAmsterdam with our own boat, cruising the canals
- We were a major sponsor of EthBerlin.
- We had three talks at Polkadot Decoded; learn more here.
- At DevCon in Bogota, we hosted our first ZK Hacker House and UPA event with Edward Snowden
- The CryptIst event in Istanbul was loaded with great talks all surrounded by Zero Knowledge.
- At Sub0, we launched the Trusted Setup Contributions here with this memorable moment:
- Our first UPA twitter space was a great space to talk about the social good of privacy and why everyone should care about privacy.
- The Open ZL initiative we just recently launched kickstarted the discussion on open-sourcing ZKP! Watch the talks here.
- We had a great time at SF blockchain week, including a quick getaway for a team offsite.
📰 PR
This year we had over 138 unique pieces of editorial coverage from both crypto and mainstream media.
We had 3.01 million views based on audience reach and engagement rate. We expanded our reach to 905M people interested in enhancing privacy in Web3. We had over 718K likes, comments, and shares on social media.
Highlights
- Decrypt: Polkadot Privacy Project Manta Network Eyes Crypto’s Largest Trusted Setup Ever
- The Block: Web3 companies launch privacy-focused alliance at Devcon
- Binance Labs Makes Strategic Investment in Manta Network for Web3 Privacy
🌐 Community
We have seen a 64% increase in followers from 48.6k to 79.6k in 2022. This growth is a great accomplishment and demonstrates that our content and brand resonate with a larger audience.
Our Twitter profile has received over 3 million clicks and over 4 million impressions in the past year. Some of our most popular tweets were also significant milestones that we achieved in 2022:
In China, we wrote a series of articles entitled Elementary School Students Can Understand ZK, which has accumulated more than 100,000+ views.
What’s Next?
In 2021, we laid the foundation for Manta Network’s ZKP protocol, and in 2022 we tested and refined our products through the testnet phase. As we enter 2023, we are thrilled to witness the upcoming release of our ZK products, starting with MantaPay. While the past year has been filled with achievements from our team, we have been working tirelessly behind the scenes on additional projects that we can’t wait to share with you. We are grateful for the support and involvement of our community and look forward to continuing to grow and innovate together.
