Stanford University Raises $32 Million for Privacy Focused Blockchain

Espresso is the new scalability optimised and privacy-focused layer-1 blockchain being developed in the US by Stanford University’s cryptography research group.

Espresso Systems is led by a dream team, combining some of the world’s leading experts in zero-knowledge proofs and cryptography from Dan Boneh’s Applied Cryptography PhD course at the California-based Stanford, one of the world’s leading teaching and research institutions.

Co-founders Ben Fisch, Benedikt Bunz and Charles Lu (who have worked together on other high-profile Web3 projects, including privacy-focused blockchain project Monero) join Jill Gunter (Slow Ventures) to bring Espresso to market.

The project not only has the best brains in the business but also has plenty of venture capital funding. Espresso Systems announced on March 8 that it had raised US$32 million in a Series A round.

Leveraging zero-knowledge (ZK-rollups) combined with “proof-of-stake” consensus, Espresso aims to optimise for both privacy and scalability, without compromising decentralisation, and build the infrastructure to support the future of Web3.

Core Feature is CAPE Transactions

One of Espresso’s core features is Configurable Asset Privacy for Ethereum (CAPE), a smart-contract application that enables customised privacy levels over the visibility of information on the blockchain. CAPE “wraps” wallet addresses, asset types, transaction amounts, and credentials so they can be hidden from public view. Issuers on CAPE get to determine what data gets shared and with whom.

Stanford is not the only prestigious university with a blockchain-focused research team. Cambridge in the UK recently announced it would launch its own crypto institutional research group, The Cambridge Digital Assets Programme (CDAP).