Offshift - Solving DeFi's Privacy Problem
Hey DEFI WORLD community!
Privacy is a big problem in crypto right now! Everything is transparent on the blockchain. Anyone can monitor all of your transactions if the person knows your public key!
That’s why we need privacy solutions like Offshift.
The following guest article is written by John, one of the co-founders of Offshift. You’ll definitely enjoy this one!
Also, don’t forget to follow Offshift on Twitter!
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The Promise of DeFi
Of the many things blockchain and cryptocurrency have been purported to solve over the last many years, few have panned out as advertised. The ICO bubble in 2017 saw crypto solutions for every ill, but in the end just showed that crypto can be a good way to raise funds, until the regulators catch up, at least.
The farming bubble this year brought new money in just to see it vanish with each collapsing, ponzi-fied food token. Where there's money there will be schemers and scammers, to be sure, but this is by no means limited to crypto.
To assume that DeFi will fade away with the crumbling ponzis, though, would be a mistake.
The DeFi movement has given birth to some applications that have the potential to facilitate a meaningful transfer of power away from States and central banks, and to the people.
Central banking's monetary policy is indisputably the greatest source of wealth inequality in the world. The bust cycles that bookend the booms occur with greater frequency than ever before, cause more damage than ever before, and each time funnel more wealth to the top than the last.
Financial regulations hinder innovation and exclude most. They favor the wealthy and established. They enable the financial surveillance of entire populations.
For the first time in human history, though, it's within our power to begin to change these things.
Crypto allows us to use money that's not issued by a central bank. It's uncensorable and permissionless, available to anyone. Our balances and transactions can be cryptographically private if we so choose.
DeFi allows us to use crypto in nearly any financial application we can use fiat, and potentially far more. It lets us replicate and improve upon any financial instrument offered in legacy markets. It's a system that's engaged with by choice, and one where there's no central authority to abuse power. The (minimal) barriers to entry that exist are the same for all.
DeFi allows us to create wealth and value not only without the banks and institutions - but in spite of them. DeFi's promise, in recent months, has been evident.
There's never existed a platform where so much value can be created and distributed so quickly. Uniswap's airdrop of the UNI token saw nearly a billion dollars in value created in a matter of hours.
Liquidity providers and lenders have earned millions in interest and trading fees, in return for providing capital in any amount. All without legacy infrastructure or the need for a central authority.
The Offshift protocol, a private DeFi project I co-founded and recently helped launch, aims to be part of the solution.
"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
Just as privacy is essential to freedom, financial privacy is essential to financial freedom. As DeFi protocols inevitably begin to face more scrutiny from regulators, privacy provides a layer of protection for both individuals and the protocol as a whole.
Offshift enables user-initiated, private, stable value storage that requires no trusted parties or custodians.
Our private, synthetic zkAssets are zkERC20 tokens that can be pegged to nearly anything with a price feed. The possibilities for synthetics and derivatives are nearly endless, but our initial implementation includes both digital assets like bitcoin and ether, as well as physical assets like gold.
We're among the first to be building private DeFi, but we certainly hope not the last.
Neither crypto nor DeFi is the cure for all society's problems, but decentralised finance and financial privacy are, without a doubt, a step in the right direction. The direction away from bad monetary policy and an expanding wealth gap, and away from a financial system that excludes most. It's hard to imagine not being excited by the strides being made right here in our lifetime towards these decentralised financial systems.
I hope you'll follow Offshift's progress and support all meaningful DeFi projects in the space. And please come by our community telegram for a chat.
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.