Brevis Secures $7.5M Token Round, Launches ZK-Powered Yapper Leaderboard Airdrop
Executive Summary
Brevis, a zero-knowledge (ZK) powered omnichain data attestation platform, has secured $7.5 million in a seed token funding round and launched an innovative airdrop campaign through the Yapper Leaderboard on Kaito AI, signaling a new approach to token distribution and Web3 engagement.
The Event in Detail
Brevis is an advanced ZK-powered omnichain data attestation platform designed to enable decentralized applications (dApps) to access and compute comprehensive historical on-chain data across various blockchains in a trust-free manner. The company, which received $7.5 million in a seed funding round in November 2024, co-led by Polychain Capital and Binance Labs with participation from IOSG Ventures, Nomad Capital, Bankless Ventures, and HashKey Global, is now introducing a token airdrop campaign. This campaign, hosted on the Kaito AI platform via the Yapper Leaderboard, will allocate a significant percentage of upcoming Brevis tokens at the Token Generation Event (TGE) to top-ranked participants.
The airdrop mechanism features a "dual-stage" process. Stage one assesses social media engagement and content quality using Kaito AI's existing algorithm to rank participants based on "mindshare" contributions. Stage two integrates a bonus system leveraging Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). This allows participants to prove eligibility for bonus scores based on specific on-chain behaviors—such as being an early crypto adopter, a DeFi expert, or a long-term token holder—without publicly revealing their wallet addresses or linking them to social accounts. This privacy-preserving verification system generates ZKPs to confirm wallet ownership, bonus eligibility, and calculation accuracy, ensuring that neither Kaito AI, Brevis, nor any third party can identify specific wallet-to-social connections.
Financial Mechanics
The Brevis Network successfully raised $7.5 million in a seed funding round that commenced in June and closed in September 2024. The round was co-led by prominent venture capital firms Polychain Capital and Binance Labs, with additional investment from IOSG Ventures, Nomad Capital, Bankless Ventures, and HashKey Global. Co-founder Michael Dong confirmed the round was structured as a token raise, though specific post-round valuation details were not disclosed. This funding underscores significant investor confidence in Brevis's ZK coprocessor technology and its potential to enhance blockchain scalability and data verification.
Business Strategy and Market Positioning
Brevis positions itself as a fundamental infrastructure layer for verifiable computation in Web3. Its zk coprocessor network enables trustless computation and data verification across any blockchain, providing a chain-agnostic layer that differentiates it from single-chain zkEVMs like zkSync or Polygon zkEVM. The technology uses Zero-Knowledge Proofs, off-chain computation, and the Brevis chain to allow developers to verify complex logic and historical states without exposing underlying data. With more than 37.5 million proofs generated, 52,420 API requests, and 69,153 unique addresses, Brevis boasts an active ecosystem supporting over 23 dApps, including PancakeSwap, Kernel, Kwenta, and integrations with MetaMask and Linea Ignition for credit card rewards programs and token distribution.
Key use cases include inter-chain identity and reputation verification, dynamic reward systems, secure DeFi automation, liquidations, and on-chain DAO governance. Brevis also features Brevis Pico, a zero-knowledge virtual machine for building modular zk applications. Michael Dong noted that Brevis's technology is already actively deployed, providing a competitive edge over rivals such as Axiom, RISC0's Steel, and Vlayer, many of which are still in development.
Market Implications
The launch of the Brevis Yapper Leaderboard Airdrop is anticipated to generate considerable social media engagement and drive user activity within the Kaito AI ecosystem and potentially Brevis-integrated dApps. By integrating ZKPs for on-chain activity verification, Brevis aims to set a new standard for airdrop campaigns, promoting fairer distribution, enhancing privacy, and bolstering resistance against Sybil attacks. This approach could influence how future Web3 projects conduct token distributions, moving towards more sophisticated, privacy-preserving verification methods.
More broadly, Brevis's advancements in ZK technology contribute to the ongoing efforts to address blockchain scalability limitations. The ability to offload data-intensive computations off-chain, while maintaining L1 trust security through ZKPs, significantly reduces blockchain workload, improves speed, and cuts costs. As Wanli, head of the Brevis ecosystem, stated, "The era of real-time ZK proof technology will arrive not in a year, but within a matter of months," with ambitious goals to verify Ethereum blocks within ten seconds. This could fundamentally alter Ethereum's consensus mechanism by allowing validators to verify streamlined ZK proofs instead of re-executing every transaction, fostering greater decentralization.
Expert Commentary
Michael Dong, co-founder of Brevis, highlighted the current limitations of blockchain smart contracts in handling complex, data-driven computations, even with Layer 2 rollups. He cited the prohibitive costs and latency associated with tasks like accessing a decentralized exchange trader's historical data, explaining why features like trading-volume-based fee tiers are absent in DEXs. Dong asserted that Brevis aims to solve this by enabling smart contracts to offload complex computations to a "highly cost-efficient" verifiable off-chain computing network.
Wanli, from the Brevis ecosystem, emphasized the transformative potential of ZK technology, stating, "We don't believe it will take 12 months." He pointed to the ambitious goal of verifying Ethereum blocks in under ten seconds using standard hardware, which would reduce computational demands for validators and enhance decentralization. Wanli also posed the critical question of how to reward genuine contributors without compromising decentralization, positioning ZK technology as an elegant solution for data-driven targeting with trustless verification.
Broader Context
Brevis operates within a rapidly evolving landscape of ZK infrastructure development. Competing with firms like Axiom, RISC0's Steel, and Vlayer, Brevis distinguishes itself by having its technology already integrated and in use by partners. The broader industry is witnessing an accelerated pace in ZK technology, with key players like Brevis, zkVerify, and Delphinus Lab projecting that real-time ZK proof technology will be widely adopted within months. This technological leap, enabling efficient and private verification of on-chain activity, is pivotal for the scaling and decentralization of Web3, promising significant enhancements in privacy, fair distribution, and Sybil resistance across decentralized networks.
Edgen Crypto·Oct 06 2025, 13:37
