Image source: Findora
The privacy-focused Layer-1 blockchain Findora has announced what may well prove to be its most innovative product yet - a privacy-focused SDK that enables any Web3 developer to integrate zero-knowledge proofs into their decentralized applications and ensure complete transaction privacy for users.
The Findora Triple Masking SDK provides simple plug-and-play privacy for any Web3 dApp, with users able to choose to mask any aspect of a transaction, including the sender’s and receiver’s wallet addresses, the type of asset sent and the amount that was sent. It’s fully configurable too, meaning users can choose exactly which elements of the transaction they wish to anonymize. So they can mask the amount sent, but keep the specific addresses or asset type sent public, if they desire to do so.
Where the Findora Triple Masking SDK really stands out however is with its integrated asset tracing capabilities. This ensures that anonymized transactions can still be viewed by regulators, meaning they remain fully auditable while being obscured from the public blockchain. This is a key capability that ensures full compliance with regulatory bodies, a key requirement for may institutional users.
Findora said the need for crypto transaction privacy in Web3 is very real. Blockchain transactions are ostensibly anonymous, because only the seemingly random wallet addresses are publicly viewable. However, the reality is that many crypto addresses can be linked to users, especially if they have posted previous transaction information, such as their purchases of NFTs, on social media in the past. This means it is dangerous for many organizations to use crypto, especially those in regulated industries such as finance and healthcare, which are required by law to keep personally identifiable transaction information secret. As such, the risk of user’s transaction data is too great for many organizations to adopt cryptocurrencies.
This is the dynamic that Findora wants to address with its Triple Masking SDK that effectively brings crypto into line with traditional banking. As the company explains, banks are required by law to ensure that all of their customer’s financial transactions and accounts are kept private. Findora points out that consumer privacy is defined as the ability of users alone to control who can access their data, and says that this has, rightfully, been recognized by most governments in the world.
By enabling any Web3 dApp to integrate zero-knowledge proofs, Findora says it’s bringing the same level of protection afforded to traditional banking customers to the world of crypto. ZK-Proofs, as they’re known, make it possible to verify that a specific amount of a crypto asset has been sent to a wallet address without revealing the asset involved, the transaction amount, or the sender or recipient’s address.
“Triple Masking fulfills a promise that blockchain technology made years ago: your financial status, your financial future, is no longer in the hands of some unknown, so-called “trusted” third party,” said Sam Harrison, CEO of Discreet Labs, the company behind Findora. “This SDK simplifies the developer experience of implementing complicated zk-proofs, which in turn enables more decentralized applications to offer the benefits of these zk-proofs to their users.”
Harrison emphasized Findora Triple Masking SDK’s novel asset tracing capabilities and the ability to comply with existing financial regulations. He stressed that this makes the offering entirely unique and of special interest to institutions. “Triple Masking solves both the privacy and compliance requirements of a professional institution,” he stated.
Discreet Labs Chief Scientist Weikeng Chen said the Findora Triple Masking SDK relies on a specific type of ZK-Proof known as application-specific turbo-plonks, or zk-Snarks, which make it possible for asset transfers to be encrypted as cryptographic commitments, rather than the data being stored in plaintext. He said it works similarly to how a privacy coin like Zcash processes private transactions.
Findora Triple Masking has the ability to scale to support thousands of transactions per second, the company said. Other features include interoperability with “elliptic curve signing algorithms” such as ed25519 and secp256k1, which means developers can enable anonymous transactions between EVM standard wallets and privacy-preserving architectures such as Bitcoin’s UTXO format. Another interesting capability is that the SDK can mask almost any asset class, including FRC20, FRC721 or FRC1155 assets, through its Prism++ transfer mechanism.
Compatibility with the secp256k1 curve also enables EVM wallets like MetaMask to sign anonymous transactions, Harrison said. “While MetaMask may not be able to enable private transactions directly, [they] can be signed by MetaMask and handled by the applications directly,” he stated.
Given its unique capabilities, Harrison expressed his confidence that the Findora Triple Masking SDK will emerge as the de facto universal privacy standard for Web3 transactions.
“Users tend to have a choice between privacy and convenience,” he said, explaining that most will choose the latter over the former. “I am excited to see what choices developers can offer their users when both privacy and convenience are attainable.”
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
