Polygon-Incubated Miden Secures $25M To Develop Edge Blockchain For Scalable Privacy

Miden raised $25M led by a16z Crypto to construct a privacy-first blockchain for establishments.
Miden’s edge blockchain executes transactions on person units for pace and confidentiality.
A This autumn 2025 mainnet launch and 10% token airdrop to POL holders are deliberate by Miden.

Miden, an unbiased blockchain protocol, has secured $25 million in seed funding to develop its zero-knowledge (ZK) infrastructure for privacy-centric, scalable transaction execution. The funding spherical obtained help from a16z Crypto, 1kx, and Hack VC, adopted by investments from Finality Capital Companions, Symbolic Capital P2 Ventures, Delta Fund, and MH Ventures. Rune Christensen from MakerDAO and Sreeram Kannan from EigenLayer participated as angel traders within the elevate.

Incubated initially inside Polygon Labs the protocol now operates independently and is positioning itself as a privacy-focused answer for establishments requiring confidential blockchain transactions. Based on co-founder Bobbin Threadbare, previously an engineer at Meta, the protocol allows transaction execution on customers’ edge units, enhancing privateness and scalability.

It was clear to me that this can’t be achieved with any of the present protocols – and so, we needed to design Miden from the bottom up.
The core concept was to maneuver as a lot of the state and execution to the sting (i.e., the consumer aspect) as doable, however no more (i.e., we nonetheless want…

Edge Blockchain Design Targets Institutional Use Circumstances

Miden achieves its core innovation by way of an “edge blockchain” operational mannequin that relocates computation from central nodes to user-managed units, together with smartphones and laptops. Furthermore, customers can select between processing transactions privately or publicly on an utility tailor-made to fulfill institutional wants.

By means of its design construction, the protocol gives massive enterprises with an excellent platform to execute confidential operations. Miden co-founder Azeem Khan acknowledged that the know-how would assist stop market disruptions from public transaction visibility. For instance, if a big firm like Apple have been to course of provider funds on a public chain, it may result in unintended market reactions.

Threadbare famous that present blockchain networks usually compromise both scalability or privateness. He acknowledged that the protocol goals to take away these trade-offs, making a platform that concurrently serves establishments needing efficiency, confidentiality, and decentralization.

Miden to Airdrop Native Tokens and Combine With Agglayer

The newly unbiased Miden will distribute about 10% of its native token provide to holders and stakers of Polygon’s POL token. The airdrop aligns with it’s objective of supporting the Agglayer ecosystem, which incorporates Polygon’s scaling and cross-chain liquidity infrastructure.

After a profitable incubation interval, we’re thrilled to announce Miden has spun out of Polygon Labs with a $25M seed, led by @a16zcrypto, @1kxnetwork, and @hack_vc.
Miden will proceed constructing their ZK-powered “edge” blockchain, the place each state and execution occur on the… pic.twitter.com/UiWgCmMJZB
— Polygon ※ (@0xPolygon) April 29, 2025

Based on Polygon Labs founder Sandeep Nailwal, the protocol embodies the way forward for blockchain structure. He described the edge-execution mannequin as a vital shift away from reliance on supernodes or centralized validators. Miden will stay a part of Polygon’s Breakout Program, which inspires scaling-focused improvements.

Miden is in its alpha stage, onboarding early builders by way of a devoted Pioneer program. The seed funding might be directed towards core protocol growth, ecosystem growth, and instruments for builders.

Business specialists are obsessed with blockchain methods with confidentiality options as a result of their enchantment to institutional customers. Furthermore, applied sciences like zero-knowledge proofs and confidential computing are creating options to the privateness efficiency problem.

Remi Gai, the founding father of Inco, a confidential computing platform famous that overcoming blockchain privacy constraints may unlock as much as $1 trillion in capital. The protocol’s mixed execution mannequin and institutional focus are acknowledged as an answer to long-standing blockchain challenges.