What drives Void Protocol?

We have our core drives listed with brief explanations both in our Litepaper and on our website, but we wanted to go into a bit more detail so people can get a better idea of what Void is striving for in the Terra community and beyond.

Void Protocol’s core drives are Privacy, Decentralization, Opportunity Cost, and Interoperability. We will dive into each one below.

Privacy

Try not to get sick of the word privacy, we’re going to use it a lot. It may already be obvious, but being a privacy protocol, privacy is paramount to us. Privacy is not default on the majority of blockchains, not excluding the Terra Cosmos blockchain. Anyone can go to finder.terra.money, search any wallet address, and see every single transaction that wallet has made. This includes purchases, sales and transfers, fee payments, wages and trades. If that wallet address can be linked to a person, which can happen several different ways (NFT purchase sharing, entering competitions, transfers between friends or colleagues, and many more), that person’s entire crypto financial history could be exposed. Whilst transparency is often important, it is more so for large companies and corporations, not for the average Joe. Void seeks to protect all Terra users from prying eyes, and it is our main focus to provide the best and most secure privacy solution to those users.

With the use of zk-SNARKs (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge), the Void Anonymity Pools will successfully obfuscate the link between deposit and withdrawal wallets. zk-SNARKs work by being able to validate possession of a certain piece of information without ever revealing that information. In Void’s case, the zk-SNARKs can validate the link between the deposit and withdrawal wallets, whilst never revealing any information about them — not the addresses, nor the amounts. The use of zk-SNARKs is very important to Void Protocol, because without their use, there will always be a weak link, due to the need for critical information to be stored in a centralized location.

Decentralization

Speaking of which, this brings us to our next topic. Whilst a lack of privacy is generally the default with decentralization, we strive to incorporate complete decentralization into our privacy protocol. Our main reason for this is trust. Without decentralization, there is a central body in which we must trust, and it has been proven time and again that central bodies cannot always be trusted.

The major obstacle for a privacy protocol trying achieving decentralization is the storage of information, an obstacle which is overcome by our aforementioned friends, the zk-SNARKs. They allow for all transactions to pass through our anonymity pools without storing any identifying information. Users will receive their funds into a truly anonymous wallet with the confidence that they have been transferred through a totally secure and trustless system.

In regards to the security of the system, another part of our decentralization process is that our code will be fully audited and open-source to the public. Our ZK library has already been audited and passed with only minor suggestions about documentation and best practices, which are being ameliorated. You can view the full audit here.

Perhaps the most visible part of Void’s decentralization is the Void DAO. This will be Void’s governing body, and it will consist of $VOID token stakers. Staking $VOID will give users the opportunity to vote on important proposals concerning the direction of Void Protocol, including, but not limited to, deposit sizes, fees, yield earning strategies and DAO fund usage. We foresee the Void DAO taking complete control of Void Protocol within 2022.

Opportunity Cost

This is one of the biggest drawbacks of a mixer-based privacy solution. In order for funds to become anonymous, users must leave their funds in Void’s anonymity pools for some time. Usually this would mean capital is sitting idle and unproductive. In the current world of constant opportunities in trading and yield-farming, this is unacceptable. Void Protocol aims to reduce opportunity cost by keeping the deposits into the pools productive, yet still liquid, so users can earn interest on their funds but not miss out on any opportunities that arise. $UST deposits will be invested into Anchor Earn, which returns ~20% APY, but does not lock up funds, so they can be withdrawn at any time. Strategies for yield in the $LUNA pool will be decided by the Void DAO.

Interoperability

Interoperability within Terra and beyond is always on the minds of the Void team. We have all watched as the Terra ecosystem has expanded from just Mirror and Anchor into hundreds of applications serving dozens of different purposes. We believe that utilizing and working with the great minds and projects within the ecosystem makes a lot of sense, so in Phase 3 of our development, Void Protocol intends to make sure that our platform is easy and well-documented enough to be built upon or integrated into any project that wants to use it.

Our interoperability plans begin with Terra, but we are big believers of a multi-chain future. Once Void is well-enough established and is running smoothly on Terra, we will initially look to expand to accommodate other networks such as Cosmos and Osmosis using the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC). As this will take some time and we do not yet know the future of Void, Terra and crypto itself, any additional plans will be decided further down the road.

- Gretskies

Void Protocol Links

🌑 Website: voidprotocol.io

🌑 Docs: protocolvoid.gitbook.io/void-protocol/

🌑 Twitter: twitter.com/ProtocolVoid

🌑 Discord: discord.gg/kB2cvnWgs6

🌑 Medium: voidprotocol.medium.com/

🌑 Telegram: t.me/Void_ann