Welcome, PriFi Pioneers, to this edition of the monthly PriFi AMA series here on the Offshift Blog! Let’s jump right into what’s happened since last month’s AMA on the Offshift YouTube Channel .

• On March 8 Offshift anon was published to IPFS
• On March 10 the Offshift anon command-line interface was published on our Gitlab
• On March 13 the Offshift LP Staking Guide was released
• On March 14 Paladin released the final report on the Offshift anon smart contract audit
• On March 17 DefiLlama began tracking anonUSD on their Stablecoins Dashboard
• On March 27 we made some major announcements , namely that anonBTC will launch in May, and that the v2 platform litepaper and development roadmap will be released in late Q2 or early Q3 of 2023.
• On March 29 the Offshift anonAdvocates Bounty Program was launched
• On March 30 all Offshift anon code was open sourced on our GitLab
• On April 14 The Daily Hodl published an article by Alex Shipp titled Social Media May Spell the End of Default On-Chain Privacy – But There’s a Fix
• On April 21 the anonBTC meme contest began - see the submissions so far here
• On April 27 we announced that the anonBTC LP Rewards Program will go live on May 5

We received a lot of questions for this month’s AMA as always, and as always we’ve answered as many as we can. Here are the AMA questions for April.

What can we expect from the upcoming launch of anonBTC in May and how will it contribute to the overall growth and development of Offshift anon?

As we announced on April 27, the anonBTC launch plan will follow that of anonUSD. There will be a three-day simple shift event, beginning on May 5, to establish liquidity in the new anonBTC/ETH market on Uniswap, and then anonymizing shifts into anonBTC will launch on May 8.

We hope anonBTC will play a large role in contributing to the growth of Offshift anon. While anonUSD gives users a peg that’s stable versus the US Dollar, one could expect more shifts into anonUSD when users are bearish on the market in general. anonBTC brings exposure to the upside of crypto, and one could expect more shifts into anonBTC when users are more bullish on the market in general. Having asset pegs on both sides of that spectrum is a big step in the development of the platform.

The Paladin audit report says that the ZK circuits were audited by a different company and aren’t included in the report. Who audited these and when? Where’s the report?

Offshift anon uses open sourced circuits that were audited by ABDK long before we used them, and which have a long, proven track record. You can find the original circuit audit here .

The Offshift anon LP Rewards Program has seen over a quarter of a million dollars in liquidity pooled in the first month. How does Offshift plan to maintain and grow liquidity for the platform as it expands to include more assets?

Liquidity in anonAsset markets is of the utmost importance for the platform as a whole to function. While we think the liquidity in the anonUSD market has been adequate compared to the volume shifted and traded thus far, we’re already looking into a potential expansion of the LP rewards program, possibly to new pools, as platform usage and the ecosystem as a whole grows. We’ll have more on that as it develops.

Alex repeatedly said marketing would ramp up when the protocol is live, but if anything, marketing and comms have been more sparse since launch. Could you elaborate on your plan?

Everyone’s definition of “marketing” varies, especially in crypto. Some consider marketing to be paying for influencers to tweet about a project or token. This kind of marketing, we’ve been clear about from day one, is not marketing we’re going to engage in. It generally just results in pump-and-dumps and there is no lasting value for the project. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that we’re not paying influencers to tweet about us.

Types of marketing we will, and do, engage in, include publishing articles like the one Alex published this month here and the many here , publishing blog posts , tweeting , and running contests , among other things. Additionally, as the project becomes more decentralized after launch, it’s important to encourage and incentivize the community to take an active role in this area. The recent launch of the anonAdvocates bounty program was the first step towards this goal, and it’s already bringing results, the first of which you’ll hear about soon.

How do you reflect on the effects of the in house marketing? Will there be better targeted promotion or are you holding out until the true ZK vision has been implemented?

As many know, we worked with two of the best marketing agencies in the space for the first few years of the project’s existence. We learned a lot from them, and the move to in-house marketing went largely, if not completely, unnoticed when we made it. We continue to pursue the marketing efforts mentioned in the response to the previous question, and will continue after the new platform launches.

How do you plan to spread awareness about your project in different countries where English is not well spoken? Do you have a marketing strategy aimed at developing many different communities in countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Korea, Iran, so that they can easily communicate and understand the project?

We made the decision early on to focus marketing efforts on the English speaking audience, as many crypto projects do, but we always encourage speakers of other languages to form (unofficial) community groups. Additionally, we’ve paid bounties for things like translations of (previous versions of) the whitepaper. Anyone interested in doing translations or marketing in languages other than English can submit their ideas to the anonAdvocates program for review by the team.

When will there be more info regarding the updating of the UI?

There will be quite a few UI updates implemented when the anonBTC LP Rewards Program begins on May 5.

Since Offshift uses a burn-and-mint mechanism, I imagine that XFT can be burned to mint anything we want. So, in reality, what are the technical requirements and possible issues that can stop us from having a wide palette of anonAssets (other than anonUSD and anonBTC)? How difficult is it to add new ones and what are the possible consequences for having too many of them?

It’s not difficult technically to add new anonAssets, but it is very important that new assets have sufficient liquidity. The initial assets are being added as the team feels the market can support them with sufficient liquidity, and then decision making on new assets will be transferred to the Offshift DAO.

I understand that having anonymity sets helps making it hard to guess which withdrawal corresponds to which deposit based on quantity. But wouldn’t it be useful to allow users to withdraw custom amounts so that we have one big pool of anonUSD where all deposits are contributing to, and then every user can withdraw custom values (shift to 500anonUSD and withdraw 230anonUSD, 70anonUSD and 200anonUSD to different wallets for example)? As this can create more ambiguity and removes the need for wide enough anonymity sets.

Withdrawing partial commitments isn’t possible on Offshift anon, but it will be on the v2 platform announced here .

Does the team still see any opportunity for anonAsset - anonAsset shifts? Why was that removed from the litepaper? I believe “zero slippage” trading between anonAssets could be an attractive feature for the platform. Will “zero slippage” trading apply to confidential assets?

Once we have multiple anonAssets live on the platform (once anonBTC is live) we’ll begin looking into shifts between anonAssets, yes. It was removed from the litepaper because we want to conduct rigorous internal testing first, to ensure there are no attack vectors that could put user funds at risk, before we commit to adding the feature.

Which of the upcoming Ethereum upgrades aims at reducing the tx gas fees and will the (Offshift anon platform) shifting costs also benefit from that?

Any of the scalability upgrades listed on the Ethereum Roadmap that reduce transaction costs on Ethereum will reduce the cost of Shift transactions.

What other anonAssets can we expect in the future?

After anonBTC, the Offshift Core Team plans to implement an anonXAU (gold) peg, and then move decision-making on new assets to the Offshift DAO.

How far along is the development of the ZK platform (confidential assets)? Will it be possible to achieve anonymity (=send funds to fresh Eth wallet, sender obscured) with the new zk platform concept? In principle, will the anon and zk platforms be standalone platforms or will there be any integration of one into the other one?

As mentioned on the blog , the v2 litepaper and roadmap are currently in development, and will be released in late quarter 2 or early quarter 3 this year. Full platform details will be available then.

Can you guys incorporate the Offshift anon framework on the upcoming CBDC currencies to ensure privacy from reserve banks? Might be a stupid question from a novice investor but curious to know none the less.

CBDCs are centralized by design, so it’s very unlikely that they look to use any decentralized protocol over which they have no control.

Is it possible (and likely) that Ethereum layer-2 solutions use the Offshift protocol for their base-layer transactions?

If an L2 has interest in using the XFT token or an Offshift product it’s possible, but it’s not very likely because the Ethereum protocol already offers sufficient capabilities.

We’d like to thank everyone who submitted questions this month! A special thanks and congratulations to this month’s winners of 200 XFT for their submissions:

• @Wndrx44
• @Mouh104
• @wann0wfhc

Please DM Sebastiaan on Telegram with an ETH address to receive your prize.

We hope you’re looking forward to the anonBTC launch - in a little more than a week - as much as we are, and we’re excited to deliver more updates on all fronts over the next month!

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