Canto is moving its DeFi-focused app chain to Polygon

Canto, a blockchain designed for decentralized finance applications, plans to undertake a layer change.

The team behind the alt layer-1 network intends to transition to a zero-knowledge layer-2 on Ethereum, via the Polygon Chain Development Kit. 

The Polygon CDK is a modular codebase designed for developers that want to launch their own zk-powered layer-2 chains. Developers who want to be part of the Polygon CDK will automatically gain access to shared liquidity through a zk bridge and interoperability layer.

The Canto team notes that if participants on Canto Commons, the project’s governance forum, can reach an agreement, the network would be able to tap into the liquidity within the Polygon ecosystem and inherit security properties from Ethereum — rather than relying on fraud proofs and economic incentives.

Read more: Polygon is focused on a future of zero-knowledge proofs

Its interoperability layer is also extremely valuable, Blockworks research analyst Dan Smith notes.

“Chains that share the same prover and bridge contract can agree to trust each other and enable fast asset transfers without additional trust assumptions,” Smith said. “These ecosystems with richer bridging more effectively scale Ethereum as users are not forced to take on additional risks with third-party bridging.”

Canto would write its zk proofs with Plonky2, whilst maintaining a proof-of-stake validator set, the development team wrote in a statement. The team also noted that validators and stakers on Canto will remain the same.

Other blockchains have been built using the Polygon CDK. Immutable, a Web3 gaming developer, has also been actively testing the technology.

Ignatius Widjaja, product lead and principal blockchain engineer at Immutable, told Blockworks that the team is excited about using a Type 1 validity prover with its Immutable zkEVM network. 

“Polygon has continued to iterate on its underlying technologies, from its sequencer to prover to its off-chain data availability layer solution, to ensure they have the best modular components,” Widjaja said. 

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