Privacy Alliance Nigeria: Introduction to RAILGUN

First slide:

Conversations about privacy often leads to adverse reactions from the public. People often attribute the need for privacy to nefarious activities when in reality, it is far from the case. The persistent question is, why do you want privacy so much, what do you want to hide?

The funny thing about this reaction is how hypocritical it is. First of all, privacy is a fundamental human need and it is the reason we're all wearing clothes and not walking around like animals.

On a less shallow view, privacy is something that we all desire and is evident in how we live as humans. It doesn't matter how much of a public figure you are, you don't want everyone in your business and we strive to ensure as much privacy as we can.

When it comes to our finances, it is pretty much the same. It's not a case of having anything to hide but more of a self preservatory move to keep your cards close to your chests. Why should everyone be in my business and why should everyone know the contents of my bank account? It's hardly an ideal situation and financial institutions are very aware of this, and that's why there are stringent rules put in place to ensure their customer's privacy.

Second slide

Most cryptocurrency projects pride themselves in their transparency and public access networks. In fact, this is one of the selling points of most Blockchains and in an ideal world, this would be perfect. However, we don't live in an ideal world and simply having it all in the open is as dangerous as it is important.

Ironically, the bad actors often take advantage of this transparency to create phishing scams that target certain wallet addresses because it is all public. So, you see, at the end of the day, the real threat lies in the lack of privacy and not the other way around.

Third Slide

This is lack of privacy prompted the creation of a number of privacy coins that achieve their underlying features through a variety of ways.

Some of the more popular privacy coins making rounds on the internet today include Zcash, Monero and Dash. For the most part, these assets focus on providing privacy for transferring and holding assets but considering where the crypto industry is right now, I feel like there's need for more.

Fourth Slide

The Defi scene is a byproduct of the crypto industry. Through the use of open-source smart contracts, a variety of decentralized applications have created liquidity pools that enable crypto enthusiasts create their own unique financial ecosystem.

Just like most things in crypto, Defi is as transparent as they come, so there's public access to everything going on with the contract. This basically means that any criminal could simply query the smart contract, see the wallets involved and target any address of choice. It's far from ideal but those are the downsides.

What if there was a way to anonymously use Defi applications without fear of the underlying risk?

Fifth Slide

According to the whitepaper,RAILGUN is a collection of smart contracts that verify zero-knowledge proofs, allowing users to make, send or receive transactions without revealing any assets, amounts, or identities. In much the same way, it also allows users to interact with smart contracts, such as those used for DEX trading, yield farming and other dApps (decentralisedApps). Layered on top of this on-chain system is a suite of adapters called Adapt Modules for existing applications on Ethereum, Binance smart chain and Polygon that anyone can deploy.

I'll leave a link to the whitepaper.

Interestingly, the Railgun project goes a step further and could also be used to hold your NFTs. In essence, this means that you can encrypt your digital assets on Ethereum, Binance network and Polygon from the public.

At first glance, using Railway might seem overwhelming but what you need to understand is that it is just a wallet like any other wallet. However, it is a wallet with two sides; the public address and the private address.

The public address functions of your Railway wallet functions like any other public address, so it is important you protect your keys. With this public address, you can receive tokens across Ethereum, Binance Chain and Polygon, and those assets will remain public.

Sixth Slide

Now, the private address is where things start to get interesting. In your private 0ZK address, you can shield your assets, including NFTs and effectively make them invisie to the public. Now, when your asset is shielded you can use them to interact with the defi applications that have been onboarded into the Railway wallet.

To make the asset public, you simply unshield it. However, prior to unshielding, you can specify the public address you want it sent to and this way, you can send assets anonymously to any address you want. Alternatively, you can simply send it to other Railway wallet users' 0ZK address anonymously. The point is, you have complete control.

Last slide

In the next video I'll do a simple tutorial showing how to shield, unshield and anonymously interact with Polygon network. Until then, if you enjoyed this little presentation, please follow us on Twitter, please share the video, and help spread the word. Thank you for watching.

Important Links:

RAILGUN Whitepaper

Download Railway Wallet

Privacy Alliance Nigeria Twitter Page