Secret Network
Have you ever wondered if there’s a way to make your on-chain footprint private? Wonder no more, in comes Secret Network: the first blockchain with privacy-preserving smart contracts.
Why we are excited about this.
We often think about how annoying it is that all transactions on the blockchain are transparent. People can just plug in your address on a [insert-blockchain-here]scan.io and track your entire onchain history, value of assets, staking activity, NFTs you FOMO-ed over and are now worth less than zero, and more. One way around it is to create a new wallet every time you make some sort of transaction that requires an interaction that is shared with people you know, but that’s not really ideal either. Transparency on the blockchain could also potentially be problematic if you were to pay with crypto for your day-to-day purchases.
But, it seems the solution has arrived with Secret Network. Secret Network is a privacy-centric layer 1 blockchain interacting with Ethereum smart contracts, Monero’s privacy by default, and Cosmos’ scalability and interoperability. We are excited about this, because it provides the solution we’ve been looking for to scale crypto payments without the need to worry about exposing what those payments were for. “Privacy is a human right”.
What is Secret Network.
Without trying to get into too much technical detail (there’s definitely rabbit hole potential for the more technically interested among us), Secret Network uses a hardware neutral isolated area called Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) where data is stored, processed, and protected in a trusted environment that cannot be tampered with. As a Secret Network user, you have access to encrypted “viewing keys” to your token balances and transaction details which you can decide to share with third parties like wallets, explorers and others. Nobody, not even the nodes, will be able to view your data unless you grant them access.
What you can do with Secret Network today.
There are three things that you can use the $SCRT token for today. Before we cover those three use cases, first a quick explainer about $SCRT.
What is $SCRT?
$SCRT is the Secret Network native token that is used to pay gas fees across Secret Apps. At the time of writing, you can get your hands on some:
By direct buying via Transak (depending on where you live and availability).
On a handful of exchanges, e.g. Kraken and Binance.
On decentralised exchanges (DEXs) which can be split by Ethereum exchanges such as UniSwap and SushiSwap as well as “Secret” exchanges like SecretSwap, Sienna and ButtonSwap.
Via bridging your existing assets to $SCRT.
Secret Apps.
Secret Apps are “unstoppable, permissionless applications that can utilize encrypted data without ever exposing the data itself, even to the nodes in the network performing computations”.
There are currently three use cases for Secret Network:
Secret Finance: similar to the DeFi dapps that we know today but private by default and with additional privacy protections for sensitive financial information. Secret Finance is traditional DeFi without transactions and data being exposed to the public. The private nature also prevents front-running and makes it Miner Extractable Value (MEV) resistant.
Secret NFTs: NFTs are a web3 way to provide and verify ownership of assets on the blockchain. Traditional NFTs and Secret NFTs share features in non-fungibility, their transaction history being recorded on the blockchain, and public metadata.
The main difference between traditional and Secret NFTs is that the latter provides:
The ability to make metadata private: allows creators to embed secret links to additional NFT features and functionalities.
Private ownership: assets and transactions don’t have to be exposed to the public.
Access control: NFT creators can decide who gets full access to content. For example, a thumbnail or watermark can be used to give the public an idea of what the content looks like, but access to the original will only be granted at purchase.
Secret Bridges: In order to use Ethereum with Secret Network, you need to use a MetaMask and Keplr wallet to bridge assets from one network to the other. When connecting the Keplr wallet to the application, you can unlock secretToken balances. Since secretTokens are encrypted in nature, a user must create a viewing key in order to see her balances, which will be created by signing a transaction on Secret Network.
Wallets
Secret Network is built on Cosmos, for which you can use the following wallets to interact:
Kryptic Wallet, Starshell Wallet, CosmoStation, Keplr, and Ledger Nano.
You can also bridge your assets from Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain with MetaMask and from Monero using an external site.
Why you should be paying attention.
Secret Network announced raising $400 million in January 2022, which includes top-tier ecosystem investors acquiring $SCRT, revealing a $225 million ecosystem fund to expand Secret Network’s application layer, network infrastructure and tooling, and a $175 million accelerator pool to expand user adoption through grants and other incentives.
Secret Fun: Become a Secret Agent.
Secret Network builds their ambassadors network by recruiting “Secret Agents” who are rewarded to defend and spread awareness of the decentralised web. Secret Agents are expected to contribute to building the private, decentralised web and spread awareness to grow it. When accepted into the program, you start as a recruit and work your way up to a Special Agent. Once a recruit becomes a Special Agent, you will get rewarded with swag, $SCRT, special Secret NFTs, and access to special Discord channels and events.
Conclusion
Web3 is in its infancy but its evolution is starting to snowball with loads of new projects, new solutions and new ways of making privacy on the decentralised web more prevalent. Secret Network has taken a step to making transactional data, ownership and control more private, which will make web3 more interesting to use and to scale.