Beginning on the Technical Side
When Manta Network first began as a project, its priorities were focused on the technology: building a one-of-a-kind, secure, and scalable layer-one network that preserved the privacy of all on-chain interactions within the Polkadot ecosystem. With much thought around architecture and implementation, the cofounders drafted and submitted a technical whitepaper to the International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR), with rigorous mathematical proofs on security and privacy of Manta protocols.
Scaling out the project, the cofounders focused on building a world-class engineering team, finding talent from all over the globe. After a year of development, the contributor team grew to almost 20 members, with 85% of them on the engineering side. Throughout this whole process of bringing on more contributors, the product continued to evolve.
- In one of the project’s first accomplishments, Manta completed the first milestone of our Web3 Foundation Grant and became the first Substrate project that demonstrated zero-knowledge proof capabilities for private transacting of parachain assets.
- Shortly afterwards, Manta performed our first cross-chain messaging between Manta Network and Acala’s testnet, demonstrating the project’s ability to successfully execute parachain communication.
- On Kusama, Calamari raised a record-breaking amount of KSM, which secured our parachain through help from the community.
- Since securing the Calamari Network chain, the parachain has run several runtime upgrades to improve the infrastructure and security, and launched governance to decentralize the project.
- Most recently, Manta successfully deployed the Dolphin Testnet, which marks the first major publicly accessible milestone for the project. With Dolphin Testnet, users can begin trying out the upcoming features that will be deployed on Calamari Network and Manta Network.
Needless to say, the project has been successfully delivering on its product and technical goals. But now, as the main net deployment of all of our work begins to come into view, Manta Network is shifting into the next gear, and expanding to be a more outward-facing project on the marketing, community, and thought leadership side. The new logo that the project is releasing represents that shift.
Shifting to Growth
Manta has accomplished many milestones to date. Based on the feedback so far from the community regarding the Dolphin Testnet, the community sentiment around the project is positive and excited about what is to come.
But pushing forward into this new growth mindset requires more than just an amazing product. The project is adding on more core contributors and designing a strategic vision to usher in the next chapter of Manta Network–a chapter that demonstrates not just to the community how much has been achieved, but one that also shows the world how important and critical Manta is for the future of Web3.
On-chain privacy in Web3 requires a scalable, decentralized, and secure solution. Manta’s approach using zero-knowledge proofs and the Substrate framework for composability will accomplish this. The project is focused on building a strategy and bringing on the right contributors to communicate this.
As part of the next chapter, Manta Network will be bringing on talented and experienced core contributors who will focus more on the strategy and brand-building aspects of the project. As one of its missions, Manta will educate the entire Web3 space about the importance of on-chain privacy, and our goal is to become a thought leader in this matter with the help of the entire community.
