Cypherpunk Guild Grant Application
Required Documentation
Project Name
RAILGUN Privacy
Background
RAILGUN Privacy Project is a smart contract system that gives zk-SNARK privacy to any transaction or smart contract interaction on Ethereum, Polygon and BNB Smart Chain.
Using Railgun means users can be untraceable when they trade, use leverage platforms, or add liquidity, with absolutely any dApp on EVM blockchains. It allows any user to build up a private balance and trade through it without withdrawing. It is fully on layer-1, so it does not trade off security by using layer 2 node system or cross-chain bridges.
It will also enable private voting in DAO governance as well as blind, private sealed-bid NFT auctions, both of which are under development.
The privacy for the sending and receiving of tokens along with swapping is currently live on ETH, Polygon and BSC. The ethos of RAILGUN Privacy Project is very much about self-determination of who gets access to users financial data. The ability to transaction privately by way of the zk-SNARK smart contracts will only give users more self sovereignty over their finances.
For compliance purposes ZKP ‘view keys’ can be generated to prove that transactions are not fraudulent or criminally inclined.
Project Overview
RAILGUN brings privacy to public ledger blockchains for privacy enthusiasts who want to participate in DeFI.
Currently users can recieve, send and swap tokens on Ethereum, Polygon, and BNB Smart Chain privately. Currently in development is deployments to further DeFi chains like, Solana, Near, Polkadot, Arbitrum etc. Also the core development team is working on on-chain private governance voting, blind private sealed bid NFT auctions, and private cross-chain interoperability.
Scope
Currently the team is working diligently on hardening the initial launch of RAILGUN Privacy v1.0. You can see deliverables at https://railway.xyz/ of which we already have private swaps. We’ll see further integrations with other DeFi protocols and chains across the broad ecosystem.
Short term we’ll look to further stablize the v1.0 launch and transribe the smart contracts to Rust for Near and Solana deployments. We’ll also be adding more complex DeFi interactions to all chain deployments. Success will look like ecosystem wide adoption of privacy preserving tech for DeFi interactions, governance, and NFT sales.
Budget and Milestones
We’re seaking a grant of $50,000 and on-going development of private governance voting and RUST deployments will take an estimated 1000 hours.
Aditionally other areas of development include…
Mobile wallet: iOS and Android. Mirrors functionality of web
Zcash/ZEC wallet - bring in privacy buffs into the railgun ecosystem with the more private and secure cross-platform wallet out there. Ren integration to bridge ZEC safely to DeFi. (prifi)
Further cross-platform integrations to natively support 15 new DeFi protocols including Badger and Curve. Railway Connect extension will allow 3rd parties to easily add an “incognito” mode facilitated by the Railgun privacy system, so any project can build for a privacy-centric use case with minimal effort (railgun connect handles all zk’s, snark interactions, circuits and cryptography seamlessly).
Note that LAST chronologically will likely be the deployment to Solana and Near, followed by “railyswap.” Those will each take many many cycles (4-6 mos).
Team
The team associated with the RAILGUN Privacy Project can be found here: RAILGUN.
The team is comprised of several subject matter experts with deep knowledge in Smart Contracting, applied cryptography, computer science, networking and more. Additionally DAO based developers contribute on smaller or less cryptographically intense aspects of the project.
Risks
Whilst most technical hurdles have been overcome the main risk would be a lack of adoption due to a crowded and loud marketplace. Hence any introductions, influencer or ecosystem help would be greatly appreciated.
Whilst Railgun is the first to market with a working ZKP privacy focussed EVM application, knowledge of the potential for such and underlying technologies can be limited in the wider crypto ecosystem.
Whilst fully functional the Railway dApp does require use to establish effective anonymity sets across the myriadtokens which it supports. Effectively requiring assets to be parked within a shielded balance rather than unshielding to a fresh and unlinked wallet.
Liquidity provisioning on new chain deployments has also been a challenge.
Community and Supporting Materials
RAILGUN Privacy Project is live now on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, and Ropsten.
Polygon Deployment:
ETH Deployment:
BSC Deployment:
Telegram:
Discord:
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/railgun_project
Licensing
The project is open source and externally audited by ABDK, Trail of Bits, Zokyo and, Hacken.