Introducing [Project Untitled]: Solving Web3’s State Management Problem

Project Untitled tackles Web3's state management, offering real-time, censorship-resistant data handling with zk-powered polynomial commitments for developers.

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At o1Labs, our vision is to build an internet where developers can use programmable cryptography to create more powerful applications. We see a future where applications are decentralized at scale. This future is only possible once we solve the largest challenges facing Web3 developers.

Web3 doesn’t have a scalable solution for state management.

Fees to store data on-chain are prohibitively high, and current state management solutions come with either centralization or latency tradeoffs that make it impossible to handle the needs of modern applications without severe compromises. These design tradeoffs are against the ethos of the open web and, at its worst, put a ceiling on what web3 applications can achieve.

[Project Untitled]* is o1’s answer to Web3’s state management problem. We’re building a mutable state solution enabling developers to use their application data in a real-time and censorship-resistant way, powered by polynomial commitments & zk.

[Project Untitled] will be a fully decentralized platform designed to make managing application state easy and more affordable. The magic is Polynomial Commitments – they enable diff like updates to state, dramatically reducing the cost and latency of updating state. [Project Untitled] will enable developers to access application state directly, ensuring censorship-resistant sequencing and the efficient execution of transactions. We believe this approach will drastically reduce the cost and complexity of storing and updating data, making application state feel closer to memory than storage. Ideal for data-heavy applications, [Project Untitled] will empower developers to build the next generation of Web3 applications without being constrained by the limitations of today’s blockchains. We’re designing [Project Untitled] to be a stand-alone protocol that will be ecosystem-agnostic, accessible from Mina, Ethereum, and eventually all major ecosystems. For those interested in the technical details, we’ll be sharing a deep dive into how we envision the system will work very soon!

A Commitment to the Mina Ecosystem and Beyond

[Project Untitled] is a testament to our ongoing commitment to the Mina Protocol. We uncovered this state management challenge by speaking to the Mina Community directly. Learning of the first-hand challenges Mina’s zkApp developers faced, we knew it was something we need to deliver. [Project Untitled] contributes to the future of the Mina ecosystem, and is a cornerstone of the roadmap we recently published.

[Project Untitled]’s vision extends beyond Mina. The challenges of decentralized state management are universal to Web3. By making [Project Untitled] ecosystem-agnostic from day one, we will empower developers across all major ecosystems to build the next generation of open web applications, ultimately contributing to a more decentralized future for the internet.

o1Labs has a deep understanding of the underlying cryptography and years of experience delivering the Mina Protocol and the tools developers rely on to developers that have production applications with real users. With the experience of delivering a protocol that leans on the same underlying tech, we’re confident that we are uniquely positioned to solve this problem.

Building the Future of Web3 Together - What’s Next?

We are excited to continue our journey with the Mina community, the wider Web3 development community, and all those who share our vision for a more open, secure, and decentralized Internet. The next step is a design review that we’ll do in public. If you’re interested in [Project Untitled] for your application, follow us on X for updates and join our Telegram channel. Together we can build a future where everyone benefits from the power of decentralized technologies and programmable cryptography.

*[Project Untitled] isn’t the final name. We were just too excited to start sharing our vision and be transparent about what we’re building. Branding is hard, but building the future is harder so we wanted to bring all of you along for the journey as soon as possible!