Silent Protocol is encapsulating Ethereum today
EZEE (Economical Zero Knowledge Execution Environment) is a framework that can allow users to seamlessly interact with existing applications privately.
The rise of Web3 technology has not only revolutionized the way we perceive software but has also emphasized the importance of ownership and privacy in the digital realm. As the digital world becomes more interconnected, the need for secure and private systems becomes increasingly evident. As blockchain technology evolves, the need for transactional and functional privacy becomes paramount. Silent Protocol, with its groundbreaking EZEE framework, is pioneering the movement to address these challenges.
For a system to offer smooth privacy, the system can not rely solely on encryption algorithms and zero-knowledge proofs.
(https://baincapitalcrypto.com/navigating-privacy-on-public-blockchains/)
Pure encryption based systems can hinder the sharing of state data, making it less user-friendly. With Silent Protocol the goal is to create a system where users could access combined state data and engage with smart contracts without compromising privacy.
Imagine interacting with platforms like Uniswap, MakerDAO, Lybra Finance, OlympusDAO and countless others, all while maintaining complete transactional anonymity. This isn’t just a feature; it’s the DeFi code of silence.
Before the introduction of the EZEE framework, interactions with smart contracts on Ethereum primarily relied on pure Zero-Knowledge (ZK) architectures. This approach presents several challenges.
State Denial: One of the primary issues with traditional privacy-preserving systems is the problem of state denial. When an application’s state is made private, sharing this state with another entity that isn’t privy to the original data source becomes inherently contradictory. The dilemma arises where a system can either be made private or be made composable with the broader ecosystem, but achieving both simultaneously is challenging. This state denial problem is a significant hindrance to the widespread adoption and application of privacy-preserving technologies.
User and Developer Friction: Relying solely on ZK architecture for smart contract interactions introduces complexities for both end-users and developers. For the users, the process will not be as seamless and intuitive as it should be, which results in barriers for further adoption. For developers, building on such an architecture could lead to more friction due to intricate systems, and consequently result in slow development cycles.
Limitations in Composability: Traditional ZK systems, while offering privacy, often come with limitations in terms of composability. While they could encrypt user data and details, they often restricted users from accessing the global state of the protocol, limiting the scope of interactions and functionalities.
EZEE: The future of privacy in blockchain
EZEE is a transformative framework that gives fluid data privacy. It allows to engage with smart contracts in a privacy-preserving manner without the limitations of state denial. By separating encryption and execution and using EZEE Signals, it ensures that users can enjoy the best of both worlds: robust privacy and seamless interaction with the broader ecosystem. EZEE offers a new approach to privacy in the blockchain world. Instead of relying on encryption alone, it provides a flexible framework where encrypted data isn’t the sole basis for updating a smart contract state privately.
Silent has chosen to start designing EZEE from the framework proposed by Zether. Zether pushes for a design structure where users can store encrypted balances and interact with smart contracts that execute their computation on-chain. Through the design structure of Zether, users can interact with purpose-crafted contracts to provide privacy. Each of these end contracts deals with ciphertexts and computes through the help of homomorphic encryption, depending on the properties of an additive homomorphism.
However, because end contracts depend on the user’s Zether account, the contracts cannot interact with other contracts to process inter-function calls. They are limiting the scope of the computation on an individual application in this paradigm by only enabling access to its local data, resulting in the condition described as state denial. This is a prevalent challenge in privacy-preserving systems. It represents the conundrum of balancing privacy with composability. In essence, it’s the age-old struggle of ensuring data privacy while facilitating seamless interactions with other systems. The innovative design of EZEE addresses this challenge head-on with EZEE Signals.
Introducing EZEE Signals:
EZEE Signals are signer ambiguous anonymous message passing protocols between two endpoints based on the many out of many proofs and application identifiers. The EZEE framework fragments the encryption and the execution layer and lets the users segregate their states while carrying out operations on target applications.
Through EZEE signals, a user can connect to any target applications from their encryption layer and execute privacy-preserving function calls. Once the resulting state has been reflected on the user’s secondary account, the user can aggregate his public yet anonymous state into the encryption layer in his primary account contained within the encryption layer. EZEE signals enable anonymous communication between the encryption and execution layers. This ensures that the user can interact with target applications without revealing their identity. Once the interaction is complete, they can consolidate their data back into their primary account.
EZEE combines the robust privacy features of a ZK system with the flexibility of an access channel solution.
Vitalik Buterin’s thoughts about privacy
Vitalik Buterin has consistently emphasized the importance of privacy in decentralized systems. His advocacy isn’t just a fleeting interest; it’s rooted in a profound understanding of the inherent challenges and vulnerabilities that transparent blockchain systems face. In a world where every transaction and interaction are recorded on a public ledger, the need for privacy-enhancing solutions becomes not just desirable but essential. Recognizing these challenges, Buterin has explored and championed the potential of ZK proofs as a groundbreaking solution to address multiple issues in the blockchain domain. At the heart of this exploration lies ZK-SNARKs. This cryptographic technique allows for proofs that a computation has a specific output without revealing the inputs. With this profound architecture, Silent Protocol has developed a ZK-SNARK-based scheme that allows for anonymous and confidential transactions (via multidimensional non-opt-in construction on the L1) and enables them on any existing DeFi applications without having to pool transactions. With Silent, users don’t need new wallets or additional tooling to take advantage of private DeFi on protocols they already use daily.
This allows users to interact with their favorite on-chain application in a privacy-preserving manner, ensuring compliance and fluidity. Through Silent Protocol, applications known as 0dapps are deployed to encapsulate end applications, forming the execution layer of the system. Using the EZEE framework through 0dapps, Silent Protocol will allow users to perform complex DeFi operations at 1:1 synchronicity with the application contract and grant them complete anonymity and pseudo-confidentiality.
To summarize, EZEE builds a framework for programmable privacy that allows users to update arbitrary smart contracts in a privacy-preserving manner. This framework is immune to the challenges of state denial. Unlike traditional protocols that rely on encrypted inputs to expand the system’s state, EZEE introduces a unique design. This design splits the framework into stable and adaptable system states. It also partitions a user’s primary encrypted account into multiple secondary accounts, facilitating targeted execution silos. These individual execution silos, function within a dedicated layer, seamlessly interacting with the concluding contracts. The contracts can access the system’s universally shared state, thanks to their independence from encrypted inputs during function calls. Through the innovative EZEE Signals, the framework differentiates between the encryption and execution layers. This distinction makes it possible to generate specific anonymous asset transfer channels, which consolidate the states from various execution silos back into the encryption layer. The result is a dynamic framework adept at ensuring seamless data privacy.
Introducing Silent:
Silent Protocol aims to develop a human-centric privacy solution, emphasizing the importance of user privacy in the evolving Ethereum landscape. The EZEE framework diverges from traditional privacy solutions by fragmenting the encryption and execution layers, allowing for more fluid privacy practices. EZEE signals enable users to maintain their primary account’s privacy while interacting with smart contracts through secondary accounts, ensuring data confidentiality and anonymity.
Silent Protocol is on a mission to redefine the boundaries of what’s possible in privacy-preserving systems. It represents a harmonious blend of advanced cryptography, system design, and user-centric functionality, paving the way for the next generation of private, composable, and user-friendly systems.
*Note: Silent Protocol is one of the investment portfolios of SuDo Research Lab.
