Letting you in a little Secret : Introducing The Secret Network
Good morning Anon, The Secret Network needs you, your mission should you choose to accept it, is to join the Secret Network as a Secret Agent, learn about the chain and its applications, infiltrate its communities in order to capture all the alpha available and report back to HQ. As always, should you or any member of your team be caught or doxed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This article will not self-destruct in 5 seconds. Good Luck Anon.
The Secret Network
Secret Network is a privacy preserving blockchain that was built with privacy at the core of its architecture and technology. While the way in which Secret Network achieves privacy in smart contracts, transactions, nodes architecture, interactions with the chain is quite technical, the point of this article isn’t to tackle technical questions but to introduce you to the network and its ecosystem.
For more in-depth explanations regarding the privacy preserving technology Secret Network is built upon, you can start by reading the Secret Network FAQ. If you’re interest is peaked, you can learn more about the Secret Network by becoming a Secret Agent, fulfilling secret missions, earning rewards, and becoming part of the Secret Agent community.
What’s a Secret Agent
A Secret Agent is a cosmonaut that was able to fulfill the recruitment process and first couple of secret missions (should you choose to accept them) offered by the Secret Network. Once you pass the test, you get access to a confidential discord channel where you can meet your fellow secret agents, participate in daily and weekly missions of varying difficulty, and be rewarded for your time and efforts upon proof of completion. You can also advance in the ranks of Secret Agents and take on special missions depending on your skills and preferences.
First things first, what’s $SCRT and how can I get some?
$SCRT is the native currency of the Secret Network Blockchain and is used in Staking and governance at the blockchain level to secure the network. It is also used to pay for gas fees and as a currency when interacting with the different Secret Network applications.
You can purchase $SCRT using:
- Decentralized Exchanges: Osmosis, JunoSwap, SecretSwap, Sienna.
- Centralized exchanges: Binance, Bitmart, CoinEx, Mexc, Gate.io.
- Fiat onramp providers: Transak.
$SCRT is fully compatible with Keplr wallet.
What is $sSCRT ?
While Secret Network is based on privacy, it’s engineered as an opt-in feature, meaning that $SCRT is public and can be changed to $sSCRT, the secret version of the token that will be used for private/secret transactions. The user has the choice to remain public or go private.
To swap your $SCRT to $sSCRT or the contrary, you can use Keplr wallet interface that let you freely convert from one version of the token to the other as show in the image below.
Staking $SCRT
$SCRT can be staked/delegated using Keplr wallet staking interface to secure the network and vote on governance proposals. Stakers can expect around 24.58% returns per year in staking rewards.
Applications available on the Secret Network
Secret Swap is a cross-chain liquidity protocol built on Secret Network that takes full advantage of the privacy features of the network by enabling the use of encrypted secret smart-contracts to provide enhanced privacy to the users.
This feature is not to be underestimated in the architecture of a Dex as it prevents front running and value extraction from Defi users. In the Ethereum blockchain, all transactions are public and displayed openly on the network. User’s transactions are queued one after the other and are treated by miners in priority based on the amount of gas spent on each transaction. Since all the information is public, the transaction can be read, and replaced by a clone offering more gas fees than the initial transaction to be processed in priority. The initial transaction will then be either delayed or fail due the value capture already taken advantage of. This is done using bots specialized in capturing value by front running transactions and robing users of certain opportunities. The bot operators and the miners (who are paid handsomely by bots to skip the line) are the sole beneficiary of this system enabling them to front run most arbitrage, minting and price action opportunities. Many blockchains like Ethereum allow these predatory systems to take place. The end user is often victim to different actors that operate at the protocol level, leaving them no chance to compete or protect themselves.
Secret Swap solves this by taking full advantage of Secret Network technology, enabling them to encrypt data at the smart contract level. If the transaction and intention behind it is encrypted, it can’t be read before its execution on the blockchain and can’t be front ran / replaced by a bot as there is no way of knowing what the transaction is about in the first place, protecting the users from any manipulation or front running.
Secret Swap also enables users from Ethereum and Binance Smart chain to cross their assets to the network by using Secret Swap bridge. Secret Swap’s native governance token is $Sefi and is used to vote on governance proposals and rewards liquidity providers
Sienna Swap is the other hot Dex of the Secret Network offering similar capabilities as Secret Swap while also allowing for IBC Wrapping. IBC Wrapping is the act of bridging a token from another Cosmos IBC enabled chain over to the Secret Network and creating a private version of said token that can be used in Defi within Secret Network. Like $sCRT, you can bring you $osmo, $Atom, $HuaHua, $Juno to Secret Network, create a Secret version of them and use them to provide liquidity, trade and soon, to lend and borrow within Sienna. The $Sienna token is used in governance of the protocol and to reward Defi activities within Sienna.
Snip-721
Snip-721 is the NFT technology of Secret network. It allows for private/secret NFT’s but also enables creators to insert private metadata that only the owner of the NFT can access making the NFT able to hold secrets and NFT transactions to be totally private.
Stashh is a premier NFT marketplace. The app ushered Cosmos NFT season around the end of last year and is a driving force in the ever-growing Cosmos NFT Space.
Stashh is a serious contender in the space with a UI/UX on par, if not better, than certain industry leaders. Stashh plans to introduce Auctions, Offers, Secret Badges (unique feature of Secret network) and Gumball Machine (a loot box/slot machine mechanic). This is a very ambitious project at the hearth of the NFT movement in Cosmos. Many NFT projects such as Anons, Redacted Club, MetaRats, Secret Girlfriends, Clandestina Gang, Secret Punks, Secret Apes, Confidential Cats chose to mint on Secret Network and list on Stashh.
Alter is a private and secure messaging app built on Secret Network and making use of its encryption capabilities to offer private and decentralized communication (emails, messaging, chats, groups), secure access control and data security. As we speak, Alter is offering account creation and email communication inside Alter. They recently spoke of releasing their messaging features soon.
Shade protocol released a couple of weeks ago and is presented as a connected privacy preserving Defi application built on Secret Network. It is truly the backbone of decentralized finance on Secret Network.
Shade will offer an algorithmic stablecoin called $Silk with transactional privacy enabled by default. $Silk will be at the center of Shade Protocol Defi platform allowing for minting, staking, treasury, liquid staking, and synthetics.
BlackBox by Trivium Nodes
BlackBox is a collection of applications geared toward bringing privacy, safety, and anonymity to blockchain transactions that are public by default.
Cloak can seed another wallet with $SCRT gas without leaving a trace, escaping doxing with exchanges or other wallets. Cloak acts as a mixer with added privacy.
DeadDrop allow you to create an alias that a sender will use in place of your address to send you tokens. Since the alias/address pair is stored inside an encrypted contract, the receiver information stays private from the public and the sender.
Shinobi Protocol is a trustless, bidirectional bridge that connects Bitcoin users to Secret Network. With a hash verification system, Shinobi Protocol avoids the traditional direct custodial model by instead being a privacy-secured trustless bridge. With Shinobi Protocol, it will be possible for Bitcoin holders to have direct access to Secret Network defi while benefiting from all the privacy features the network offers. Shinobi promises no middleman, and the peg in/out actions communicating with Secret Network are not discernible from ordinary transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain preserving the privacy of Bitcoin defi transactions on Secret Network.
Bright future
Secret Network is home to many great projects currently in the works such as SecretDao (Privacy preserving Dao toolings), Stake Easy (Secret Network Liquid Staking solution), Secret Invoice (a way to privately send invoices), Jackal (decentralized cloud storage solution), Secret Heroes, Secret Dreamscape, Orbem Wars (are all NFT/P2E games being developed on Secret Network), LegenDao (a play to mint offering unique NFT gamification) and many more.
One thing all the projects presented here have in common is that they are all very new and early in their development. This is the state of Secret Network as a hole, it is an ambitious sandbox environment still at its early days and a great foundry for builders to create and expand upon the privacy features the chain offers.
The 400 million ecosystem funding
Earlier this year, Secret Network announced that DeFiance Capital, Alameda Research, CoinFund and Hashkey acquired a critical stake in the network providing them with the ability to fund a 225M ecosystem fund targeted at expanding Secret Network’s application layer and a 175M accelerator pool designed to provide non-dilutive capital, grants and ecosystem incentives to expand user adoption.
Secret Network came a long way thanks to its grassroot applications and early adopters that were able to build organically some of the most innovative projects in the space. These funds and new investors usher a new era in the development of the chain and offer the opportunity for new builders to join the Network.
Its not always sunny in Secret Network
In the past weeks, with the numerous mints, stashh app success and shade protocol airdrop, the chain has been under a lot of stress and still suffers congestion. These high demand events arrived at some crucial network infrastructure shortages creating a domino effect of bad performance. The infrastructure of the chain is put to the test and Secret Labs, the developers behind Secret Network are working along side Secret Network Validators to resolve the situation. If you are impacted by these issues, please be patient as things are being actively worked on.
Now the good news! Is it finally airdrop season in Secret Network?
While nothing is certain, Shade Protocol certainly opened the ball with its $SHD airdrop and many rumors are circulating that other protocols are preparing to bootstrap users with airdrops. The sources of said rumors are trusted members of the Secret Network community, often privy to Secret Alpha, as such, I have no reason to distrust what I’ve been hearing. As always with airdrops, patience is key. I’ll let you know when the word is out.
Closing words
Secret Network is a burgeoning and dynamic ecosystem propelled by innovation and privacy ideals. I was immediately attracted to the Secret Network after interacting with its community and been amazed by their availability to help and welcome new users. I hope you will experience the same warm welcome I received and as always, feel free to reach out for a chat, I’m always at the disposal of my fellow cosmonauts and secret agents.
Mission complete.
