Total Privacy: Namada’s Public Good Offering
At the forefront of multi-chain confidentiality, the asset-agnostic L1 is providing privacy solutions based on asset diagnostics
What is Namada?
Built by the Anoma Foundation, Namada is a sovereign interchain PoS Layer 1 protocol that aims to provide asset confidentiality and multi-chain privacy by using a combination of novel security mechanisms and zero-knowledge proof technology.
How does Namada work?
While Namada has adopted the widely used Tendermint (CometBFT) as its consensus algorithm (alongside the integration of ABCI++), its consensus mechanism is somewhat unique.
This is because the chain implements the novel Cubic Proof of Stake (CPoS) system, which makes for some interesting key features.
Some of these include:
- An upgraded fee distribution mechanism that sees staking rewards compound automatically. Essentially, it’s no longer necessary to make a tx to claim rewards and then re-stake.
- Payment of tx fees in multiple assets
- Improved PoS security, as Namada has a detection system that identifies which accounts contribute to faults/attacks on its network.
- Along these lines… those found to be part of a safety fault can be subject to Cubic Slashing. This algorithm means that the amount to be slashed will be exponentially higher if more validators or a larger single validator commit faults simultaneously.
- Automatic rewarding and slashing
What sets Namada apart?
-MASP
For one, Namada is asset-agnostic and it makes this possible by its deployment of the Multi-Asset Shielded Pools (MASP) originally derived from the Sapling circuit. In short, through the deployment of Namada’s novel zKSNARKs, this circuit allows assets (NFT & Non-NFT) to share a unified privacy set on the chain.
This differs from the traditional Per-Asset Shielded Pools where privacy guarantees are fragmented among individual assets.
The new method means that a person is able to send any asset privately and its transfer will be indistinguishable from any other and the tx can be paid for using any asset that the community has voted to accept.
Now MASP works by distinguishing between two sets of assets:
- one being the shielded set, where transactions are completely private.
- and the other being the transparent set, where transactions are public.
In the shielded set, privacy is achieved through something called Pedersen hashes. These are secure hash functions that make it computationally impossible to deduce any information about an input in a transaction.
But how does this work in practice?
Let’s use an example and introduce “Steve”.
He wants to use a dApp on the Berachain network, but he needs some of his ARB tokens linked to the transparent Ethereum mainnet. To do this privately, Steve first sends his ARB to Namada’s unified shielded set, where it gets placed in the MASP and then onward to the Berachain-based dApp. Doing it this way breaks the linkability between the ARB on Ethereum and the ARB used on Berachain and makes the transfer unlinkable.
How assets are moved privately through Namada
Other key features of Namada
- Privacy as a public good
Users of the protocol are incentivized to hold shielded assets, which helps to add to the Namada’s shared shielded set. Those who do so are given rewards as part of MASP’s Convert Circuit system.
(TL;DR: More privacy for me = more privacy for you) - Near-zero fees & low transaction latency
Accomplished through modern BFT consensus and quick-proof generation, Namada also has 4 second block times. - Fast Zero Knowledge Protocol generation
Speaking of speed, Namada has designed a system that allows quick ZKP generation for edge devices. It means that at mainnet users can interact with with the protocol and send shielded transfers via browser through browser apps. - IBC compatible & trustless Ethereum bridge
Namada ensures interoperability across chains by integrating both the IBC Cosmos SDK module, as well as having a trustless Ethereum bridge.
Bonding on Namada
Much like other Cosmos-based chains, Namada is secured by its own $NAM token. Users that want to bond can do this by delegating some of their $NAM tokens to validators that are running nodes.
Doing so allows the delegators to earn rewards and either assign voting rights to the validators, or the delegators can retain these rights in case they wish to personally participate in chain governance.
Delegators may also redelegate their tokens at any time, and unbonding takes 21 days.
Namada Governance
The chain takes a rather interesting approach here, offering both on-chain and off-chain governance.
Where on-chain governance involves decisions made directly within the blockchain, where proposals are submitted, discussed, and voted upon by validators and delegators.
Off-chain governance meanwhile, is more flexible.
It entails both discussions and decisions made outside the blockchain and is meant to be a collaborative solution reached through community consensus.
This two-pronged approach is meant to ensure a transparent, fair, and efficient decision-making process by having both structured on-chain processes, as well as, +collaborative off-chain discussions.
Insights
Namada is part of a growing trend of emerging chains that are dedicated to user privacy in txs, staking, voting, and more.
See below:
Namada Backing
Backed by the Swiss-based Anoma Fund, the organization has received a total of US$ 57.8 mil. in support from 38 backers, across three funding rounds.
Notable names here include: Polychain Capital, Maven11, Fifth Era, and Electric Capital amongst others.
Namada’s Future Roadmap
Currently the protocol is undergoing its incentivized testnet, the Namada Shielded Expedition in which Cøsmostation is a proud participant.
Namada also has three (3) development phases:
1) Assets-agnostic privacy
2) Privacy likes company:
This will see the introduction of bridges to more ecosystems and will allow Namada to provide a unified privacy set for the interchain. This is where the project is currently at.
3) Making privacy a win-win:
By making these bridges private users will be able to move assets to and from privacy chains… privately.
But doing so presents a major challenge, as it breaks fault isolation; a problem that may be overcome by adding more cryptography.
What is Cøsmostation?
Cøsmostation is a Cøsmos genesis validator and a key player in the Cøsmos ecosystem, providing invaluable infrastructure legos essential for scaling and onboarding users onto blockchain networks. Cøsmostation also bootstraps networks and onboards end-users.
Mintscan
Moreover, Cøsmostation offers its own blockchain explorer, Mintscan. It provides insightful interactions with chain data across various networks and also features a user-centric design, with transparency placed at the core of its ethos.
