secondary title

New privacy-based asset types with configurable permissions

Based on ZKP, Manta created a new asset type zkAssets, which not only supports private transactions between Polkadot parachain assets, but also supports homogeneous tokens such as ERC20, non-homogeneous tokens such as ERC721 and ERC1155, and soul-bound tokens Privacy transactions.

Through Manta, the private exchange of tokens and NFTs can be realized. For example, transform existing NFTs (CryptoPunks, Boring Apes, etc.) into private assets zkAssets for transactions.

On the basis of privacy, zkAssets supports permission configuration. Asset transferors can customize access rights, such as KYC rules, whether hacker assets can be blacklisted, etc. At the same time, it also supports the transferer to selectively disclose ZPK verification information and asset transaction history to the receiver without revealing the private key.

secondary title

Team financing

At present, Manta has received investment from institutions such as Binance Labs, Polychain, ParaFi, Multicoin, CoinFund, Alameda, DeFiance, and Hypersphere, as well as Grant funding from Polkadot's official Web3 Foundation.

secondary title

What are ZKPs?

Show your driver's license.

How can I prove that I can drive?

Show your driver's license.

This example explains the properties of ZKPs:

1/ Proof: A valid proof is presented.

2/ Efficiency: You only need to show proof, you don’t need to drive the car around a few times, do some operations such as reversing the car and putting it into the warehouse, to show that you can drive.

3/Privacy: Only the driver's license was shown, and no other information was disclosed.

Let's look at a more rigorous example:

Imagine that you are facing millions of acres of mature wheat.

Among them was a tree of oats. Please find it out, can you do it? That would take decades, or simply be impossible.

I tell you, I know where this oat tree is, do you believe me?

(In reality, it is difficult for individuals to trust each other, especially when money is involved. For example, to go to a bank for a loan, you need to provide proof of income or even collateral.)

So, I put on a blindfold for you, and walked around in the wheat field, let you squat in front of the oats, take off the blindfold, and see the oats. Then, still wearing the blindfold, stood up and walked out of the wheat field.

You believe I know where the oats are, but you still don't know where the oats are. Because you're wearing blindfolds and squatting down, you can't get your position.

Explained in cryptography, zero-knowledge proof ZKP is a method for a prover to prove a proposition to a verifier. In the process, the prover does not need to disclose any other information to prove that the proposition is true.

In cryptography, ZKP is implemented by very complicated mathematical formulas, so this article will not expand on it.

At present, in the field of encrypted assets, ZKP technology is relatively mature, but there are thresholds for deployment, mainly in the following areas:

1/ There are certain requirements for the development environment, such as Ethereum is not suitable for ZKP development. Almost all zk-EVMs are currently still under development.

EVM is the Ethereum Virtual Machine and the Ethereum development environment. When a chain is compatible with EVM, the existing applications on Ethereum can directly "copy and paste" the code and deploy it on the chain, for example, Uniswap can be directly deployed on Optimism Rollup.

ZK-EVM refers to the development based on ZKP and compatible with the EVM environment.

Due to development environment problems, the current ZK-EVM project does not seem to be as fast as advertised in terms of transaction experience. The reason is that it takes time to generate a "zero-knowledge proof" on the chain, that is, the "driver's license" needs to be produced on-site.

In order to solve this problem, in the Manta test network Dolphin, users need to download Manta Signer to quickly generate zero-knowledge proofs.

Currently, the Manta technical team is working on solving this problem, allowing users to save the steps of downloading Manta Signer and improve the experience.

(Dolphin test address:https://app.dolphin.manta.network/#/transact）

2/ There are fewer open source ZKPs, and the encryption team needs to hire cryptographers. The current zero-knowledge proof construction scheme mainly has the following two types:

A. Use a high-level programming language such as Circom

The disadvantage is that performance optimization cannot be performed, which may make the application experience worse.

B. Directly use ZK libraries such as Arkworks' Groth16 to build the protocol

The disadvantage is that developers need to have a deep background in cryptography, and it is easy to make mistakes during the development process.

secondary title

What can ZKPs do?

At present, the application of ZKP in the blockchain can be roughly divided into two areas-scalability and privacy.

In terms of capacity expansion, the representative application is ZK-Rollup Layer 2, such as StarkWare, zkSync, Scorll, etc.

Projects that focus on applying ZKP to the privacy field include Manta, Aztec, Aleo, etc.

ZK-Rollup expansion

With the characteristics of ZKP, the expansion of Ethereum Layer 2 is realized.

Roll, volume, rolling meaning. Up means up and up. Rollup is to "roll up" the transaction and process it in its own network.

Since the proof file is small and the verification time is fixed, the proof itself will not become larger as the number of transactions increases.

Since the proof file is small and the verification time is fixed, the proof itself will not become larger as the number of transactions increases.

ZKP Privacy

With the characteristics of ZKP, Ethereum Layer 2 privacy transactions are realized.

During the transaction process, the verifiers in the network verify the authenticity of the trader's assets and transactions by verifying the generated Proof. On the premise of ensuring the privacy of assets, (remember the example of driver's license and oatmeal), so as to realize Privacy transactions.

ZK-EVM

The so-called ZK-EVM refers to whether it can be compatible with the Ethereum EVM development environment based on ZKP, so that the existing dApps of Ethereum can directly "copy and paste" the code to Layer2 for easy development.

Manta New Privacy Assets and Important Components

secondary title

zkAssets: a new privacy asset type with configurable permissions

Assets, meaning assets. zkAssets is an asset type based on ZKP and encrypted by ZKP.

zkAssets is a new, private encrypted asset type created by Manta. ZKP provides privacy, completeness and access, and has the following characteristics:

Support flexible asset types: including homogeneous tokens (such as ERC20, etc.), non-homogeneous tokens (such as ERC721, ERC1155, etc.), soul-bound tokens (non-transferable non-homogeneous tokens).

Preset privacy: zkAssets is private by default on the chain, and the address of the asset holder, the asset of the holder, and the type of asset are all encrypted.

Voluntary disclosure: With the permission of the asset holder, zkAssets supports the disclosure of provable asset information.

Specifically, the holder can disclose the asset transaction history to the auditor without disclosing the Spending Secret. Holders can also selectively disclose asset information that can be verified through ZKP.

Configurable asset policy: zkAssets transaction issuer, can customize access rights, such as KYC rules, access rights, for example, whether hacker assets can be blacklisted.

secondary title

zkAddress System: Public Key Infrastructure for zkAssets

Address, which means address. ZkAddress is a public key based on ZKP and encrypted by ZKP, and consists of three parts:

zkAddress: The public key of zkAssets, which can be used to receive any kind of zkAssets.

Note that the zkAddress will not be disclosed in any zk-Transaction (ZKP-based transaction) on the chain.

Therefore, no one else can associate a zk-Transaction with a zkAddress on the chain unless the sender or receiver of the transaction authorizes others to view the key.

Read-only state key: used to view the complete transaction history of a zkAddress, as the name suggests, it is read-only and can only be used to view the history, and cannot spend any zkAsset on the zkAddress.

Spending Secret: The ciphertext is randomly generated (such as using BIP39 mnemonics), and two other keys are derived, namely zkAddress and viewing key. To transfer zkAssets, you need to spend ciphertext (Spending Secret) to generate ZKP.

Important components of the Manta protocol: MantaPay, privacy smart contracts and MantaSwap

MantaPay is the transport layer, which transfers the privacy assets zkAssets to the privacy address zkAddress, using MantaPay. Currently, users can experience MantaPay on Calamari.

More information about MantaPay will be announced this quarter.

Pioneer Network Calamari

MantaSwap is a DEX built on a privacy smart contract layer.

Pioneer Network Calamari

Manta has launched Calamari, a pilot network in Kusama, and Dolphin, a privacy test network. Dolphin v1 will be launched in December 2021, and more than 6,000 independent wallet addresses participated in the test.

Currently, Dolphin v2 has been launched, and participants can get KMA token rewards. The test address and reward form are as follows:

Dolphin test address:https://app.dolphin.manta.network/#/transact

secondary titlehttps://gleam.io/ye0bg/dolphin-testnet-v2-airdrop

Project progress

Q4 2020 – The project is created and funded by the Web3 Foundation.

The first quarter of 2021 - Seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital, completed the first milestone of Wen3 Foundation funding.

Q2 2021 - Publication of an updated version of the white paper in the electronic edition of the International Association for Cryptologic Research.

Q3 2021 – Manta Pioneer Calamari wins Kusama slot auction. Completed a private round of financing led by CoinFund and ParaFi.

Q4 2021 – Testnet Dolphin v1 release. Pioneer Network Calamari launched community governance.

Q1 2022 - Complete the XCM design library to support cross-chain messaging within the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. The community-based autonomous nodes were launched, and the Pioneer network Calamari was decentralized.

Q2 2022 - Receive investment from Binance Labs. The testnet Dolphin v2 was launched, which greatly improved the verification speed and added new functions.

Q3 2022 (current) - Node expansion. Start the zero-knowledge proof trusted setting, and launch the test network Dolphin on Calamari's MantaPay. Introducing decentralized staking on Calamari. Conduct a security audit of MantaPay.

Manta's founding team consists of several cryptocurrency veterans, professors, and academics whose experience includes Harvard, MIT, and Algorand. Manta's investment institutions include Polychain, ParaFi, Binance Labs, Multicoin, CoinFund, Alameda, DeFiance, and Hypersphere, etc. Manta is also a grant recipient of Polkadot's official Web3 Foundation, a member of the Substrate Builder Program, and a member of the Berkeley University Blockchain Accelerator.

About Manta Network

Manta Network is committed to building a better Web3 world through privacy protection. Manta's product design starts from first principles, and provides end-to-end privacy protection for blockchain users through leading cryptographic architectures such as zkSNARK. While protecting privacy, Manta is interoperable, convenient, high-performance and auditable, allowing users to conduct private transfers and transactions between any parachain assets. Manta's vision is to provide more convenient privacy protection services for the entire blockchain world.

Manta's founding team consists of several cryptocurrency veterans, professors, and academics whose experience includes Harvard, MIT, and Algorand. Manta's investment institutions include Polychain, ParaFi, Binance Labs, Multicoin, CoinFund, Alameda, DeFiance, and Hypersphere, etc. Manta is also a grant recipient of Polkadot's official Web3 Foundation, a member of the Substrate Builder Program, and a member of the Berkeley University Blockchain Accelerator.

We're Hiring!

Follow the official channel for more information about Manta/Calamari:

Follow the official channel for more information about Manta/Calamari:

Website:https://manta.network/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/MantaNetwork