Cross Chain Catalysts Proposal (Deployment Grant): Private Prediction Markets on Aztec – WakeUp Labs
Summary
We propose to build a Private Cross-Chain Prediction Market leveraging Aztec’s privacy layer and Wormhole’s bridge to Arbitrum. This market will allow users to privately place bets on outcomes while interacting with public L2 infrastructure, making use of Aztec for anonymity and compliance-safe handling of sensitive information (e.g., identity-based gating for jurisdictions).
This PoC will focus on a basic UX and architecture for:
- Resolving markets
- Private deposits from Aztec to Arbitrum via Wormhole
- On-chain market resolution and private claims back to Aztec
The project aims to demonstrate:
- How private signal aggregation can be done securely
- Cross-chain private interaction patterns
- A strong use case for privacy in crypto-native prediction systems
We will start with simple binary outcomes and testnet-only usage.
Timeline
- Start date: July 1, 2025
- End date: Sept 1, 2025
About You
WakeUp Labs is a top blockchain development studio focused on advanced smart contract engineering, zero-knowledge technology, and protocol integrations. We’ve collaborated with top-tier teams like Optimism, Coinbase, Arbitrum, Starknet, Aztec, BitcoinOS, Paraswap, among others.
Recent work includes:
- Starknet: PoC for private ERC20 using Noir (client-side proof generation) and Garaga (on-chain verification)
- Arbitrum: Delivered AssemblyScript tooling so devs can deploy high-performance WASM contracts, and released a beta Force-Inclusion Terminal that rescues stuck assets on Orbit chains—helping make the Arbitrum ecosystem faster, safer, and more developer-friendly.
- Optimism: Shipped Optimism’s ZK Toolkit for the OP Stack, Superchain Accounts with native account abstraction, a one-click Rollup-as-a-Service console, the RetroPGF Impact Evaluation dashboard, and now runs the “Optimism as Venture Studio” accelerator for new builders.
- Aztec: Developing a Stylus-compatible UltraHonk verifier that bridges the current gap between Noir’s zero-knowledge capabilities and Arbitrum Stylus.
- Others: Contributed to projects in DeFi (Paraswap), infra (BitcoinOS), and more.
We have full-stack experience with ZK, Solidity, TypeScript, AssemblyScript, and smart UX for wallets and dApps.
Technical Approach
The architecture of the prediction market will follow these steps:
1. Market creation and deposit:
- Users enter Aztec and submit a private deposit commitment with their market selection and amount
- Deposit crosses to Arbitrum via Wormhole bridge
2. Market resolution (public):
- Market resolution will be performed by a designated admin address. In future versions, this role could be replaced by a decentralized oracle or voting mechanism.
- No permissionless market creation: For the MVP, market creation is restricted to admins to prevent spam and simplify resolution flow.
- A Merkle proof of resolved winners is created
3. Private claim (back in Aztec):
- Winning users privately claim their earnings in Aztec using a proof of inclusion + correct market prediction
Privacy benefits:
- Users’ bets are not visible publicly
- Resolution is public for verifiability
- Claims are private, preserving user anonymity
This MVP will use a simplified proof flow to focus on the cross-chain user journey and privacy UX.
Grant Amount Requested
Deployment Grant - $5,000
Budget Rationale
We are applying for the upper end of the Deployment Grant tier because we are committing to a fully functional testnet deployment, integration with the Wormhole bridge, and a clean UX.