An article to understand Findora's blockchain road
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Findora tries to introduce anonymity and auditability to distributed finance through its breakthrough in cryptography, thereby distinguishing itself from the current blockchain exploration path.
Editor's Note: This article comes fromBlue Fox Notes (ID: lanhubiji), reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Blue Fox Notes (ID: lanhubiji)Blue Fox Notes (ID: lanhubiji), reprinted by Odaily with authorization.With the development of the public chain today, its advantages and disadvantages are already very obvious. Bitcoin focuses on value circulation and value storage, going further and further on the road of value storage, and currently has almost no rivals in this field.In such an evolution process, both Bitcoin and Ethereum have shown their advantages and disadvantages. Everyone knows the advantages, but the main disadvantages are scalability and privacy. At present, Ethereum is trying to solve its scalability problem through sharding and layer2, and privacy is realized through solutions such as tornado cash.What does this mean for other public chains? There are two ways to go. One way is if I can't beat you, then I will join you. The second path is the exploration of new models.
If you take the road of fine-tuning, it may be difficult to take the road of public chain. Ethereum has its developer and user ecology, but it is only better in terms of scalability, which is not enough to compete with Ethereum. In this case, the best choice is to enter the Ethereum system, become a side chain of Ethereum, and serve the Ethereum ecosystem.Or explore different demand scenarios based on different understandings of the future evolution of the world. If this understanding is in line with future evolutionary trends, then it is possible to find a way to survive and develop. vice versa.The technical foundation of the Findora project lies in the application of cryptography, such as the zero-knowledge proof technology system, which will also be mentioned below. And its underlying understanding is that it believes that the future world of blockchain has great confidentiality and compliance requirements. This can also be seen from the description of its white paper: "Findora foresees a new world. In this world, every asset in the financial system is always compliant and can be publicly audited at any time. Every asset contains Rules around ownership, transferability, and compliance. A network of validator nodes enforces compliance while distributing trust in the network."That is to say, in Findora's view, a fully transparent blockchain is not suitable for large-scale financial services. And this concept has a different exploration direction from today's DeFi. It is this difference based on the underlying understanding that may be where Findora seeks a breakthrough. If it pursues the same scenario requirements as today's Ethereum-based DeFi, then the value of its exploration will decrease, because not only Ethereum, but also Polkadot, Cosmos, Near, and Solana are explored on this road. ... and other public chain ecology.
Findora believes that a fully transparent blockchain cannot meet the needs of future financial scenarios. For example, while maintaining confidentiality and distribution, how funds can prove that they only invest within the scope of authorization, how investors can obtain anonymous qualification certificates, and how regulators can use fine-grained audit keys.Which way is Findora going? Findora tries to introduce anonymity and auditability to distributed finance through its breakthrough in cryptography, thereby distinguishing itself from the current blockchain exploration path.Findora's Blockchain RoadFindora is also a blockchain system. It has its own distributed ledger, which can help banks, institutions, and organizations process high-value information, including financial information, transaction information, and government supervision information, on the basis of alliance chains and public chains. Worry about confidentiality and compliance, and achieve privacy and trustlessness.In addition, the difference between Findora and the current blockchain design is that it can also meet compliance requirements through encrypted audit tools. This is conducive to the current financial institutions and government organizations to complete their value interaction through the Findora blockchain system.How does Findora apply its advantages in cryptography to the blockchain?
Findora wants to solve the scalability of the existing public chain, while taking into account privacy protection and auditability. Regarding security and scalability, it is not the focus of this article. This article focuses on the point that Findora is trying to break through: the balance between confidentiality and auditability. On this basis, it provides services for web3 applications and open finance.From this perspective, Findora itself is not competing with public chains such as Ethereum. It may be different from the completely decentralized and transparent Ethereum. It may cooperate with traditional institutions or organizations to build a confidential, auditable, and scalable public financial infrastructure. Polkadot and other public chains have different paths.Findora's combination of confidentiality and auditabilityAt present, the transactions of Ethereum and Bitcoin are transparent. Although their addresses are anonymous, their sending address, sending amount, receiving address, sending wallet balance, receiving wallet balance, transaction flow, etc. are all transparent. The address is associated with the identity, and the privacy of the user is basically impossible to guarantee.Currently, there are also anonymous coins such as Monero and Dash, but these anonymous coins have bottlenecks in their scalability, and the security threshold is not high enough, making them difficult to serve as public financial infrastructure.One of the entry points of Findora is anonymity, but its anonymity is optional. Users can customize anonymous objects, such as sender, amount sent, assets sent, receiver, etc. That is to say, in financial applications using the Findora system, its transactions can be optionally anonymized. Once anonymity is selected, ordinary users will not be able to inquire about their transaction flow, amount and other information. However, the system can maintain traceability of transactions without disclosing some confidential information. For example, the system can track the flow of funds with a transaction volume of more than 100,000 US dollars, but it does not need to disclose the identity information of specific users.Through address identity registration, the user can obtain legal ownership of the address. This is also the "financial passport" concept proposed by Findora. The encrypted qualification certificate can be the certificate provided by the current social certification institution. Findora's blockchain system allows users to selectively disclose identity credentials or anonymous credentials. In this case, the user can certify that the information submitted by him is true. Credentials are constructed through digital signatures and non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs. The qualification credential provider will not disclose the specific information of the user in the process of providing the user's qualification certificate.This has usage scenarios in some financial applications. Findora can achieve auditability according to the needs of asset issuers and meet compliance requirements. For example, a company that issues shares on Findora's ledger can track the transfer of its assets on the ledger, can track the amount transferred in the transaction and the identity of the asset holder. In the process of tracking the transaction, the issuer/third party does not need to participate in person, and the network verification node will perform the tracking. At the same time, according to privacy requirements, the correctness of the transaction can be verified without obtaining any information from the third party. This also leverages the aforementioned encrypted anonymity credentials and transaction address/account linking services etc.
Findora's auditable features are also applicable to a variety of financial scenarios, such as proof of user solvency. Assets and liabilities recorded in Findora's ledger are confidential, but it can be used to prove that a user at a certain address has solvency.In addition, Findora also has the service of "obfuscating transactions" to reduce the traceability of assets on the chain. It has "trusted" and "untrusted" obfuscation services. In Findora's trustless obfuscation service, users can use ring signatures or blind signatures to hide the relationship between income addresses and output addresses. In a "trusted" obfuscation service, users are required to transfer their assets to a trusted mixer, which obfuscates the assets and transfers them back to the address.Findora's implementation of optional anonymity and auditability is based on two different sets of zero-knowledge proof technologies. One can achieve anonymity of ordinary complexity, and the other can achieve anonymity of high complexity.Based on Bulletproofs' zero-knowledge proof technology, anonymous transactions can be performed. Imagine, assuming that your Ethereum wallet can realize anonymous transactions, including sending amount, sending address and receiving address, etc. This can protect the privacy of ordinary users to a certain extent. This zero-knowledge proof technology can make its confidential transaction verification efficient, generate a small amount of data, and do not require trust. It is not only anonymous, but also conducive to scalability.
High-complexity anonymity uses Supersonic's zero-knowledge proof technology, which needs to meet higher-complexity application scenarios, such as those involving supervision and auditability. This is an optional privacy. For example, it can prove to the regulatory authorities that the relevant transactions of a certain taxpayer have completed the tax payment, and at the same time can protect the privacy of users (the specific transaction information can not be disclosed to the institution).The current public chain is difficult to meet the auditable requirements, and through zero-knowledge proof technology (Bulletproof and Supersonic, etc.), Findora is trying to find a middle way to meet the needs of real-world scenarios, which not only meets the needs of users for anonymity, but also for privacy protection. At the same time, it also meets the needs of organizations for auditing. The scope of its auditability includes proof of solvency, whitelist asset proof, balance range proof, proof of solvency, etc., while achieving auditability, it is not necessary to disclose the user's private information.The main application scenarios of the current public chain are open financial services such as DeFi. At present, the scale of DeFi transactions that Ethereum can carry is limited, which is limited by its block generation time and the capacity of a single block. Of course, this is also related to its security and decentralization. It is related to the consideration of globalization, which will be solved through Layer 2 and sharding in the future.Understanding ZK Rollup and Optimistic Rollup in one article: an important expansion direction of EthereumHowever, Findora tries to use cryptography tools to solve the needs of public chains in real-world scenarios. Real-world scenarios must take into account confidentiality and auditability, and also require sufficient scalability.Findora's solution to improve its scalability has two aspects. One is ZK-Rollup technology, which is one of the most promising layer2 technologies currently. and storage off-chain, allowing for greater throughput. At present, Layer 2 technology in the Ethereum ecosystem is also actively being explored.Understanding ZK Rollup and Optimistic Rollup in one article: an important expansion direction of Ethereum". In ZK-Rollup technology, the application of cryptography is very important. The Supersonic technology in the Findora system can also come in handy.
In addition to ZK-Rollup technology, Findora also tries to improve the transaction speed in the system through RSA encryption accumulator technology. The main function of the RSA encryption accumulator is to reduce the amount of stored data of the node.Nodes in blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin need to store a large amount of historical data in order to verify transactions. Findora tries to implement a data storage scheme through RSA accumulators. For example, when a Findora node processes multiple transactions in a block, it does not need to update each transaction separately, but can update it once after processing all transactions.The Findora platform is divided into three layers, including the financial service application layer, Findora developer tools, and distributed ledger protocol.Findora's distributed ledger protocol is a blockchain ledger that supports confidential transactions, smart contracts, multi-signature accounts, and non-custodial exchanges. Findora's consensus and governance adopt Finsense consensus.
In the Findora blockchain system, the core is the design of its distributed ledger. Its technology tries to combine the transparency of "verified data structure" and the privacy of "zero-knowledge proof". Findora's distributed ledger has a distinctive data structure for recording transactions, which it calls an "Authorized Data Structure" (ADS). A verified data structure means that it is an authenticated data structure, that is, anyone with access rights can verify that the historical transactions of its distributed ledger are correct. When distributed ledgers face queries from different sources, their responses are the same. If the responses are different, it is because of their different "verified data structures", which are relatively easy to find through external gossip protocols. If a transaction is verified, it becomes an immutable part of the distributed ledger.Developer tools are the middle layer, providing multi-asset issuance and transfer, identity proof, audit and asset tracking, compliance tools with privacy protection, etc. The application layer is where developers freely deploy smart contracts to build various financial products or services.
