Private ID verification wins Binance Web3 reality show

Crypto exchange Binance has announced the winner of its Web3 reality show, titled “Build the Block,” held in the metaverse. Within the show, startups competed with each other to win an investment from Binance Labs. 

In an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, the Binance team said that zkPass won the contest after receiving the highest votes in the competition. The decentralized identity verification solution that preserves privacy came on top after competing with many other finalists.

Episode 6 of #BuildTheBlock is live!

It’s the last showdown before the grand finale, with only two projects left competing for a spot in the final. Who will take the victory?

Time to find out

— Binance (@binance) May 30, 2023

The startup aims to provide an identity verification solution for Web3 applications. This is based on multi-party computation and zero-knowledge proof technology. 

Joshua Peng, the co-founder of zkPass, said that the investment will help them build a decentralized infrastructure. Peng explained:

“We are not only thrilled to be a part of the first pitch ever done in a real-time metaverse series, but especially honored to win Build The Block and have the opportunity to work closer with Binance Labs.”

Binance chief business officer Yibo Ling, who also participated as a judge in the contest, said that they are looking forward to seeing the growth of the competition’s winner. “We’re looking to build the foundations to sustainable ecosystems that allow scalability, specifically those enabled by zero-knowledge proof techniques,” Ling said.

Related: Binance helped US authorities freeze $4.4M linked to North Korean cybercrime orgs

Apart from zkPass, four other contestants received investment offers from Binance Labs. This includes a decentralized privacy-preserving data lake called Mind Network, a project called Kryptoskatt that simplifies Web3 finance, decentralized finance (DeFi) platform creator Bracket Labs and operating protocol DappOS.

In other news, blockchain protocol Anoma has secured funding to continue developing its architecture. On May 31, the Swiss nonprofit secured $25 million to build a generalized “intent-centric” blockchain architecture. Anoma co-founder Adrian Brink said that the platform’s third-generation architecture provides better composability and ease of use when compared to existing smart contract protocols.

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