Fuel x Manta: Web3 [2] 1 Billion
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We hosted a fantastic panel during ETH Berlin on how privacy and modularity will bring the next billion users to Web 3, featuring participants from Decrypt, Disco, JokeDAO, Celestia, Scroll, and Polychain Capital.
The big takeaway- Opt-in privacy built on layer 1
At this event, we concluded that not only are users looking for more privacy features in next-generation applications, but if we simply stand by and do not actively implement these features, crypto can turn into a surveillance state. The proposal for opt-in privacy natively built on all layer 1s ensures that end users will always have the tools needed to protect their data from predatory companies and governments.
What is opt-in privacy?
Opt-in privacy gives layer 2s and end users programmable privacy features, natively. For example, you have a soulbound token that holds your social security number, name, and bank account number and an auditor wants to check your bank account. Opt-in privacy allows you to share only the exact information that the auditor needs. The important thing here is that because privacy tools were built natively on the blockchain (layer 1), these tools are made available to every project and person that uses that blockchain.
David Phelps, from JokeDAO, leans in further to coin a concept of “permissionless privacy:”
“Something I’ve been thinking about particularly is called permissionless privacy, which may sound like a paradox. The idea is that you can decrypt something if you have certain permission. The private data is available to anybody who’s able to match all these basic qualifications, and this becomes unlocked in a permissionless way.”
What happens if we are passive on privacy?
Not being proactive on privacy can create the worst surveillance state we’ve ever seen. A bitcoin think tank argues that CBDCs controlled by the government can lead the path to this surveillance state:
CBDCs are a government-controlled stablecoin concept that many countries are entertaining implementing into their fiat currencies, and potentially replacing fiat currency:
“As a direct liability of central banks, CBDCs become a new vanguard for the imposition of monetary policy directly on consumers: such policies include, but are not limited to, negative interest rates, penalties for saving, tax increases, and currency confiscation.”
— Bitcoin Policy Institute
How we deal with Privacy at Manta
We at Manta are building privacy tools directly into our protocol. This gives next-gen apps building on Polkadot the ability to easily integrate privacy. Poseidon Labs, the team behind Manta, is now working to extend these privacy features to the Ethereum community with the goal of providing privacy accessibility to the whole crypto ecosystem.
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 cryptography architectures such as zkSNARK. While ensuring privacy, Manta offers interoperability, convenience, high performance, and auditability, allowing users to conduct private transfers and transactions between any parallel chain of assets. Manta’s vision is to provide more convenient privacy protection services for the entire blockchain world.
Manta’s founding team is made up of several cryptocurrency veterans, professors, and academics with experience from Harvard University, MIT, and Algorand. Manta’s investors include Polychain, ParaFi, Binance Labs, Multicoin, CoinFund, Alameda, DeFiance, and Hypersphere. Manta is also an official Web3 Foundation grant recipient, a member of the Substrate Builder Program, and a member of Berkeley Blockchain Accelerator.
