Privacy Tech in Review: Secret Network NFTs
NFT was in many ways THE acronym of the year in 2021. Month after month the traded volume of these assets rapidly increased, peaking in January 2022 at $5 billion traded in a month on OpenSea alone. However thematic of the blockchain industry, privacy as a feature is not yet prioritised. Secret Network’s Stashh caught our attention since they present as an NFT marketplace with privacy and access control features. We decided to try it out and share our experience on the platform.
One quick note to the reader before we start: privacy guarantees of Secret are based on TEEs (Trusted Execution Environments) and not Zero Knowledge Proofs. TEE security is hotly debated in the ZK Community but, for the sake of this article, we will assume that the TEE in question is acting as a fully private enclave and that the system does in fact offer full privacy guarantees.
Privacy Matters
Stashh is part of the Secret Network ecosystem, built to offer users the option to make some aspects of their NFTs and the transactions linked to them private. According to Secret Network’s website, the two supported private features are private metadata and ownership. In both cases, it is up to the user to decide what should be made public.
There are several use-cases where private metadata can be advantageous. For example, NFT creators can embed secret links or game abilities within the metadata. If this metadata is made public, this causes the owner to lose the exclusivity. The ability to make ownership private gives the purchaser the ability to hide their collections, which can be valuable in many instances including product launches, trading, and financial privacy for artists.
We tried out the platform and bought an NFT with private metadata. In this case, our NFT was initially an abstract picture but inside it, there was a song and video clip made by the artist. The variable reward is a pleasant surprise and makes the NFT purchase exciting. Once the NFT was in our wallet, our ownership was automatically made private. However, if we intended to list the NFT for sale then, we would then be obligated to showcase our ownership.
Is this a user-centric platform?
The platform is similar to its mainstream competitors. It follows the design and the UX from OpenSea. The interface is usable, and it is easy to filter by category, price, and other characteristics.
The buying process is however a bit complicated since the tokens available to process payments are all wrapped. A swap needs to be made to obtain these tokens. Currently, there are six possibilities to purchase NFTs with — sSCRT, sUSDT, sETH, sHUAHUA, SIENNA, and SEFI. It would be an advantage to have other popular tokens such as ATOM to make it easier to purchase without having to make more swaps.
To buy an NFT with private metadata, we had to execute three transactions to have the total amount ready to pay, since we only had ATOM in our wallet to start with. Beyond ensuring you have the correct token to transact with, the process to reveal the hidden data is far from being smooth. It took us around 10 minutes and refreshing the page three times for the platform to be able to decrypt the data and finally watch the video that was embedded in the NFT.
Gas fees for the buying process were considerably more affordable in comparison to purchasing an NFT on OpenSea. We paid around $0.11 in total to complete our transaction.
What is in the marketplace?
There is a wide range of themes, styles, and formats of artwork present in the marketplace.
One trend across the platform is the very community-focused feel among the collections since most of them are in some way or another resembling the Secret Network’s culture, especially through the names. For example, you could find collections with titles such as SCRT Fugitives, Secret Apes, Secret Girls, etc. If mass adoption is the goal, maybe a bit more diversity could welcome more users from other ecosystems.
Conclusion
After using Stashh, our opinion is that there is still work to be done on improving the user journey, buying experience and decryption process. If these elements are upgraded, the overall user experience will be boosted. As the NFTs industry grows, privacy will be required for certain use cases, which positions Secret Network’s ability to offer private NTFs in a strategic place to increase adoption.
We will continue to review other privacy tools in the blockchain space. In the meantime, feel free to follow us on Twitter and visit our website zkvalidator.com.
