The Offshift Yellowpaper is Live

June 22, 2021

Learn how we’re building the future of Private Finance with Zokyo on a technical level.

Offshift is pleased to announce the completion of our next major roadmap milestone: the official publication of the Offshift Yellowpaper. Read it here .

Building an on-chain PriFi platform demands a sophisticated and elegant technical solution to be truly private, which is why we partnered with Zokyo on research and development back in March when we determined that other solutions didn’t meet our privacy and decentralization standards.

Today we’re excited to share some of the key highlights from the Offshift Yellowpaper that show how we’ll be working with Zokyo to develop our solution:

1) Hybrid Account-based/UTXO Model: Offshift is building the first private DeFi platform that is entirely on-chain. Unlike cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Monero which use Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) models to record asset transfers, Ethereum’s account-based model poses a unique challenge for the implementation of privacy features.

Offshift’s solution transfers part of transactions to a UTXO model where UTXOs are tied to a single account while remaining hidden via bulletproofs. You can read more about the hybrid account-based/UTXO model in sections 3 and 4.

2) Bulletproofs: Like math? Offshift uses Bulletproofs, a short non-interactive zero-knowledge argument of knowledge system that proves a secret value lies within a given interval. The basic elements of math involved are Pedersen commitments, range proofs, and inner product proofs. If you do like math, you’ll love section 5, which explains these concepts in detail.

3) Shielding Contracts: Section 7 describes how the Offshift protocol turns digital assets into hidden inputs through special smart contracts. Shielded tokens are created when a user deposits XFT into the contract and defines the zkAsset they want to receive in return. The contract receives a rate from a Chainlink oracle and issues the corresponding amount of a specified zkAsset. A user (or an address) owns the resulting list of commitments, or shielded tokens, and can aggregate them, transfer them privately, or exchange them through the contract for an equal value of XFT.

In bringing together these technical pieces, Offshift enables users to Shift back and forth between XFT and a wide array of fully private zkAssets in a single transaction, without ever leaving the Ethereum ecosystem. But solving on-chain privacy is just the beginning.

Offshift’s PriFi platform will for the first time make private, on-chain, financial applications possible, so users can engage in decentralized lending and borrowing, the formation and exchange of insurance products, sophisticated derivatives instruments, NFTs, and more. We look forward to seeing what privacy-focused developers build and bring to our ecosystem.

Want to go deeper? If you haven’t already, dive into the Offshift Yellowpaper for technical insights you won’t find anywhere else.

Looking to get involved? Cruise through our GitLab . You can even start shifting on our testnet.

Have questions? Bring them with you to our Community Call and PriFi AMA on July 1 at 12pm ET, or submit them early on our dedicated Discord channel for your chance to win 100 XFT. We’ll choose 5 winners at random during the call!

About Offshift

Offshift is leading private decentralized finance (PriFi) with the world’s first Private Derivatives Platform. It leverages zero-knowledge (zk) proofs and sources reliable, real-time price feeds from Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network to enable users to mint zkAssets, an unprecedented line of fully private synthetics. Offshift’s mostly anonymous team has developed a trusted reputation for their thorough privacy research, development and execution.

To learn more and get involved, visit the links below: