Spidey|Dev

We are now live as a validator on the @sedaprotocol mainnet💜 Soon users will be able to migrate their $FLX from Ethereum to $SEDA and bootstrap the economic security of the network. Programmable data feeds coming to a modular chain near you 🫡

As promised - part 1 of the @namada thesis 🫡 Namada is a CometBFT but non-cosmosSDK blockchain built in mainly rust that integrates sapling (Zcash UTXO & ZK based shielded transfer protocol) to create a multi-asset universal shielded pool. The result is an IBC interoperable Proof-of-Stake Layer 1 blockchain with interchain asset-agnostic privacy. Chapter 1: Why Zcash/sapling was a massive breakthrough and worth iterating on. --- Sapling (github.com/zcash/zips/blob/m…) and the overal UTXO architecture of Namada mean the blockchain database consists of thousands (if not millions) of user-generated commitments called notes. These notes indicate an amount a user is willing to spend and are secured by an associated user-held spending key. The blockchain database is a tree architecture of all of these notes with their associated commitments, basically a graph of users sending funds to each other without claiming the funds. As soon as funds are claimed using the associated spending keys the notes get "nullified" and removed from the tree. In the above architecture it becomes clear that if someone can prove that their note is valid by showing the commitment, they can add it to the chain state only to be spend upon later authorized action by the spending key. This is where ZK-SNARKS come in to play to create shielded inputs and outputs for these user-generated notes. As long as a user can prove to the network that they know their authorized spending key and that they correctly added a valid (non double spending) commitment to the on-chain note tree they can transact - privately! As the whitepaper would put it: "In each shielded transfer, the nullifiers of the input notes are revealed (preventing them from being spent again) and the commitments of the output notes are revealed (allowing them to be spent in future). A transaction also includes computationally sound zk-SNARK proofs and signatures, which prove that all required information was committed correctly." The commitments in the tree of notes are homomorphic so that at any point the multiplication of all notes in the tree (remember there is no public value attached to these) reveal a commitment that represents the sum of the value of the tree of commitments. This is how a user can prove their transaction is a valid modification to the existing state of trees. This as they know the value they will be transferring and the complete Pederson commitment that should follow from that on top of the public tree of commitments. Read that again 😂 and maybe.... again 💜 --- And although zCash works wonders, Namada realized its flaws are small yet obvious: 1. The existence/optionality of public inputs - non shielded transfers 2. The reliance on a single native asset - $ZEC Namada implements MASP (multi-asset-shielded-pool) which is a derivative of the above Sapling circuit by adding the "asset type" to each note and by calculating an independent value base for each of these asset types. The result is an asset-wide anonymity set for any potential asset that exists on Namada. Transferring shielded @noble_xyz USDC is just as private as transferring a shielded @badkidsart NFT. Thinking back to the Pedersen commitment balance check: What changed here is that instead of calculating the sum of all commitments on a single value_base (ZEC), you calculate the sum of commitments to come to a balance for all valid value bases. By proving your value transfer is a valid commitment you can now move any asset in or out of the shielded pool or transfer it to another shielded address without a validator or other observer being able to distinguish which asset is being transferred. By eliminating the existence of public-public transfers and allowing multiple assets Namada significantly grows the total shielded pool anonymity set. By building in optional disclosure they also appeal to more people, further increasing the anonymity set and usability of the protocol. Want to learn more? Listen to @cwgoes exlain this 10x better than we ever could: lavenderfive.com/networks?id… --- So by integrating a derivation of sapling Namada brings users unconditional transactional privacy for every asset equal to the anonymity set of the protocol at large. It significantly decreases anonymity loss by public data spill and safeguards users for transaction choices that are not in the best interest of their privacy. To increase the privacy assumptions even further Namada puts a big focus on user incentivisation and privacy abstraction - this is the next chapter in the Namada thesis. Follow for more this coming week! 🐝