It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Sahara Protocol. This challenging decision follows the unexpected shutdown of Bitforex and the sudden regulatory ban on privacy coins, both of which have profoundly impacted our operations and financial stability. Despite exhaustive efforts to navigate these setbacks, the combined loss and regulatory environment leave us unable to sustain our project.

We are immensely grateful for the unwavering support, enthusiasm, and belief you’ve shown in our vision. Your commitment has been the cornerstone of our journey, inspiring us to innovate and strive for excellence. As we face this closure, we are reminded of the strength and spirit of our community, which has been the true success of Sahara Protocol.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for being a part of Sahara Protocol. This is not the end we hoped for, but the memories and achievements we’ve shared will forever be cherished. We look forward to the possibility of future endeavors where we can once again come together to make a difference.

With sincere appreciation,

The Sahara Protocol Team

We are thrilled to announce a significant milestone in our journey. Sahara Protocol’s native token, SHRA, is set to be listed on the BitForex Exchange! This expansion to a new platform aims to broaden our reach and deepen liquidity for our token.

The listing is scheduled for:

2023/07/12 at 18:00 (GMT+8)

After this time, SHRA will be available for trading on BitForex, one of the world’s leading digital asset trading platforms.

About BitForex:

BitForex is globally recognized for its operational excellence, robust security measures, and extensive market coverage. With an ambition to drive the mass adoption of digital assets, BitForex delivers top-notch cryptocurrency trading services to users in over 180 countries. It’s a platform known for its commitment to providing access to high-potential and innovative tokens.

This listing represents a major step in Sahara Protocol’s growth, increasing our exposure and providing our community with more opportunities to buy and trade SHRA tokens.

We thank you all for your continuous support and faith in Sahara Protocol. Stay tuned for more exciting updates and developments in our journey.

Best regards,
The Sahara Protocol Team

As we approach the halfway point of 2023, we at Sahara want to take a moment to reflect on the progress we’ve made and the exciting developments that lie ahead.

Since our successful TGE (token generation event) in 2022, we’ve worked tirelessly to build a strong foundation for our privacy-focused DeFi project. Despite the challenges posed by the bear market, we remained committed to our vision and focused on improving our technology and laying the groundwork for future growth.

We’re thrilled to announce that our hard work has paid off. On June 28th, 2023, Sahara Protocol will be listed on two different exchanges, bringing us one step closer to our goal of becoming a leader in the DeFi space.

These listings are a significant milestone for us and result from months of hard work and dedication from our team. We’re confident they will help us continue growing and expanding our reach, benefiting our community and investors.

But our focus on privacy remains as strong as ever. We believe privacy is a fundamental right, and DeFi should be no different. That’s why we’re committed to building a platform that prioritizes privacy without compromising regulatory compliance.

We understand that better integration with gatekeeping is essential for the long-term success of our project, and we’re dedicated to finding the right balance between regulatory compliance and user privacy. Our goal is to create a platform that is both secure and accessible, empowering our users to take control of their financial future.

As we move into the second half of 2023, we’re excited about the future. We’ll focus on further ecosystem development and expand our reach through additional gatekeeping partnerships. We’re committed to building a project that is not only self-sufficient and sustainable but also adaptable to changes in the market.

We want to take this opportunity to thank our community and all of our investors for their unwavering support. Your support drives us to continue building the best possible platform and strive for excellence in everything we do.

We look forward to continuing to work together to make Sahara Protocol a success. Thank you for being a part of our journey.

https://linktr.ee/SaharaProtocol

As the year comes to a close, we at Sahara want to take a moment to reflect on our incredible journey in 2022. It’s been a great year of development for our privacy-focused DeFi project, and we couldn’t have done it without the support of our amazing community.

In 2022, we made significant strides in the development of our platform. We successfully completed our TGE (token generation event), which means we were able to bring Sahara to life — pre-public sale.

Despite the challenges posed by the bear market, we remained steadfast in our commitment to building a strong foundation for our project and we used this time to focus on improving our technology and laying the groundwork for future growth.

Now, as we look ahead to 2023, we’re excited for what the future holds. We’ll be focusing on token listing, gatekeeping partnerships, and further ecosystem development. We believe that these initiatives will help us to continue growing and becoming a leader in the DeFi space, particularly in the current markets.

On this end-of-the-year note, we also think it’s important to take a fresh look at why privacy — the core underlying pillar of Sahara — is so important in DeFi, both now and in 2023.

The simple answer is that privacy is a fundamental right, and DeFi should be no different. As more and more people turn to DeFi for their financial needs, it’s crucial that their privacy is protected. Without privacy, people may be hesitant to use DeFi platforms, which will hinder the growth of the entire industry and ultimately block mass adoption.

Another important aspect of our focus on privacy is the need for better integration with gatekeeping in the future. As DeFi continues to grow and become more mainstream — and as the sanctioning of Tornado Cash this year showed — it’s essential that projects like Sahara adhere to regulatory requirements, to avoid shut-down.

However, this must be done in a way that doesn’t compromise the privacy of users.

At Sahara, we believe that the key to achieving this balance is in building a strong project foundation. A strong foundation is essential for long-term self-sufficiency and sustainability in a DeFi project; it allows us to stay agile and adapt to changes in the market, while also ensuring that we are able to provide the best possible experience for our users.

We are grateful for all of the support we have received from our community, and we’re looking forward to continuing to work together to make Sahara a success.

From all of us at Sahara, we want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We’ll see you next year.

The Sahara Team

Gatekeeping is here to stay

First and foremost, it’s important to recognize that compliance with regulations and laws has now become a critical factor in the success of DeFi privacy projects. In the past, the decentralized nature of blockchain technology made it difficult for regulators to effectively enforce compliance, but as DeFi grows, we’re already seeing that regulators are taking a more active role in ensuring that these projects comply with relevant laws and regulations.

More likely than not, 2023 will see DeFi privacy projects implementing stricter measures to protect the privacy of their users — as well as to ensure that they avoid sanctions that downright shut them down, which is what happened to Tornado Cash in August this year.

One type of project likely to do well in the new DeFi environment is those that focus on providing privacy-focused financial services, such as decentralized exchanges (DEXs) or lending platforms. These types of projects are already gaining traction in the DeFi space, and as compliance and regulations become more important, they’re likely to become even more popular.

Additionally, we’ll probably be seeing more and more projects that provide tools for users to manage and protect their own privacy.

The privacy solutions to look out for in 2023

While it’s difficult to predict the exact solutions different projects will go for, 2023 will most likely give us variations and combinations of the following privacy-focused features:

• Further integration of privacy-focused cryptocurrencies into DeFi protocols and platforms, which will allow users to transact with these coins in a decentralized manner
• Continued development of privacy-focused smart contract platforms, which enable users to create and deploy smart contracts that protect their privacy
• More sophisticated implementation of zero-knowledge proofs and other cryptographic techniques that allow users to prove the validity of a transaction without revealing the underlying data
• Decentralized identity solutions that allow users to securely manage and control their personal data in a decentralized manner
• Creation of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) or other financial services that prioritize privacy

These are just a few examples of the types of privacy-focused features that DeFi projects are likely to develop in the future. As the industry continues to evolve, we can expect to see a wide range of creative solutions to the challenge of protecting user privacy in a decentralized environment.

How regulatory measures will likely affect development

So, what about sanctions and regulations? How are they going to impact privacy developments in 2023?

Compliance with regulations and laws is likely to have a significant impact on the development of privacy-focused features in DeFi projects. The sanctioning of Tornado Cash opened up for massive regulatory measures, which is undoubtedly going to force DeFi projects to implement stricter measures to protect the privacy of their users, as well as to ensure that they are not facilitating illegal activities.

For example, DeFi projects that provide financial services, such as lending platforms or decentralized exchanges, will need to implement measures to comply with regulations such as anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements. This may mean that the projects will need to collect and verify the personal information of their users, which could potentially undermine their privacy.

DeFi projects that provide privacy-focused services, such as privacy-focused cryptocurrencies or decentralized identity solutions, will need to ensure that they don’t enable illegal activities, such as money laundering or terrorist financing. We’ll likely see more controls to prevent such abuse — which is challenging to combine with solid privacy.

The trick, then, will be a user-friendly combination that ticks both data protection and gatekeeping boxes.

So which players will stick around?

Existing and emerging privacy projects in the DeFi space — like Panther, Cardano’s Midnight and our own Sahara — will continue to develop and gain traction in 2023 and beyond. These projects have already established a strong audience base and are well-positioned to capitalize on the growing importance of privacy in DeFi.

In addition to developments in specific DeFi privacy projects, it’s also likely that there will be broader shifts in the way that DeFi projects approach privacy. For example, there may be a greater emphasis on building privacy-focused features into DeFi protocols and platforms, rather than relying on users to implement their own privacy measures.

Additionally, there may be more collaboration between different DeFi projects and teams to develop common standards and protocols for protecting user privacy.

Overall, there’s no doubt that data protection will continue to be an important issue for the DeFi industry in 2023. As DeFi grows and matures, compliance with regulations and laws will become increasingly important, and DeFi projects that prioritize privacy, while ticking the regulatory boxes, are likely to thrive in this environment.

This article was written in collaboration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Where to begin? We saw the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in spectacular fashion, the Three Arrows Capital implosion and subsequent sinking of Celsius and more recently the FTX scandal which continues to dominate the headlines. The accounting books are clear: billions have been lost and the recovery will not be swift.

Almost unsurprisingly, the crypto privacy sector was not left unscathed.

Tornado Cash and the sanctioning of smart contracts

Tornado Cash (TC) is an Ethereum-based privacy protocol that uses zero-knowledge proofs to essentially mix transaction data in a way that completely obfuscates the link between the sender and the recipient.

It became fully decentralised in May 2020 when its developers surrendered all forms of control over the protocol. Since then, the smart contract runs the show, with the community having to democratically vote for any changes to be applied.

On August 8th 2022, under the justification that TC had become a threat to national security for being used by criminal groups to launder assets, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a division within the U.S. Department of the Treasury, added the TC smart contract and associated addresses to their blacklist of sanctioned entities.

This was completely unprecedented, because for the first time in history we saw a governmental institution saying, in practical terms, that interacting with certain lines of code (the smart contract) is illegal, meaning enormous fines and possibly jail time.

One of the curious aspects of these sanctions refers to how receiving funds through the service was also rendered illegal. Interestingly, in the aftermath of the OFAC decision, a TC user decided to send small amounts of ETH to several addresses whose owners are well known.

So should these individuals be prosecuted? Even considering you cannot stop anyone from sending funds to your wallet address? Well, technically, given the OFAC rule set, yes they should. A can of worms has been pried open and many questions remain unanswered.

Going forward

Despite the generally negative consequences that the TC sanctions had on the market of privacy coins and tokens, some argue that, if anything, the importance of data protection in the blockchain has become even more salient. Termed the Streisand effect, it seems that censoring something can lead to increasingly more attention towards it.

Down the line, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to hypothesise that this saga might speed up the mainstream adoption of privacy protocols. Many are highlighting how not only financial privacy, but all types of privacy are a fundamental and necessary human right for the individual and society to flourish as a whole.

It’s reassuring to see that progress within the crypto privacy territory continued to chug along in spite of far-from-ideal market conditions. Just days after the TC sanctions had been materialised, Monero released a significant update that strengthened their algorithms, leading to improvements in security, speed and efficiency.

In mid-May, Polygon’s Nightfall Mainnet beta went live: this network uses optimistic-zero knowledge technology to provide a safe platform for businesses to transact privately.

Early in October, Secret Network announced their future plans (Secret 2.0), detailing a roadmap that greatly focuses on security improvements through various updates to the underlying chain that are currently being worked on. During the same month, Panther Protocol announced via their monthly update that internal testing for the Advanced Staking deployment is at its final stage.

And what about Sahara?

Sahara Protocol

Here at Sahara, we don’t call it a bear market, we call it a building market. This year has forced everyone in the crypto space to chew on some pretty stale cookies, but we still persevered and made significant progress.

This year saw us launching our app on Polygon and Ethereum, in mid-March and the end of April respectively. During the pre-public sale, 650 million $SHRA tokens were successfully minted during the token generation event. This token is at the core of our protocol’s functionality and will allow users to privately trade across multiple blockchains.

Not stopping there, we also plan to expand our privacy protocol in light of this year’s developments to other Web3 realms, with a particular focus on gatekeeper and data protection functionality.

To learn more about Sahara’s vision head to https://sahara.network. You can also binge our previous Medium articles and follow us on Twitter @SaharaProtocol for news and updates.

Keep on reading for a quick reminder on what relayer tech is, as well as a deep dive into the ways it could actually be the key to bringing data protection back to the blockchain.

Quick recap: What are relayers and how do they work?

OK, so let’s just take a couple of minutes to review the basics. Relayers are services on the blockchain that typically include crypto wallets and servers. Their purpose is to relay data from a sender to a recipient, and they can do this in many different ways — as an off-chain order book, or simply as a stop between two wallets transacting.

What’s important to remember about relayers is that you can program their servers to perform a number of different functions. When it comes to data protection in DeFi and crypto trade, that function tends to center around breaking the information link between the sender and recipient wallets in a given transaction.

Relayers can do this in several ways, but let’s say the purpose of a relayer was to ensure data protection during a transaction withdrawal powered by zero knowledge proof verification. When using a relayer, the values required for the ZKP verification would pass to the relayer, which would then calculate the fees for the transaction, and send the values to the blockchain.

Relayer tech pros

The biggest benefit to relayers is that they help ensure data protection, which we’ve already established is one of the industry’s toughest nuts to crack. Because transparency and the ever-public ledger are both core pillars of blockchain and crypto trade, the stretch between you as an individual and your entire transaction history isn’t long at all. As soon as someone knows your wallet address, they can track every move you’ve ever made on-chain.

Relayers directly contribute to making sure this doesn’t happen. When they’re used for withdrawal purposes, they can cover the fees in order to complete a transaction into an empty wallet. One that has no transaction history, and so has no info by which to track it.

The functionality is also fairly easy to integrate as a sidekick to on-chain transactions. Because they operate on separate servers, they’re not linked to the transactions that are recorded on different chain ledgers. It’s important to note that relayer tech should be used to protect individual users and their data while trading in DeFi — not to help criminals launder money or cover their financial tracks.

Relayer tech cons

The most obvious relayer tech con is not really so much about the tech as it is about the implication of the tech. For blockchain data protection purposes, relayers form part of mixers. If you’ve been following the industry news in the past six months, you’ll know that mixers, which effectively create anonymity in blockchain trade, have been pegged as the main culprits when it comes to decentralized money laundering.

The reason Tornado Cash was sanctioned was the use of mixer technology, which relayers form an important part of. When you completely break the link between sender and recipient, you also create an opportunity for individuals looking to perform illicit transactions with cryptocurrency.

Additionally, transactions that use relayers are slower than regular transactions. The relayer has to receive the information being forwarded, verify or calculate according to that information, send the transaction to the blockchain, and then wait for it to execute. So while relayers ensure privacy, they still have a way to go where speed is concerned.

How relayers contribute to solving blockchain’s data protection problem

If relayer technology is used for the right reasons as a mixer component, it certainly holds considerable potential for being a real part of the blockchain data protection solution. Today, the weakest aspect of DeFi trade is that maintaining user privacy is up to the individual user. If you’re not careful, or if you don’t know enough about how to be careful, it’s easy to make small mistakes that have big consequences.

Once your wallet address is linked to your person, that’s it. Your activity on the ledger is revealed, along with your holdings. Relayers are a big step towards preventing this from happening.

Because their servers are able to relay data without revealing information about the starting or end point of a given transaction, it becomes possible to transact decentralized without compromising your data. It’s kind of like the blockchain privacy version of having your cake and eating it, too.

By limiting the amount of places your identifying data moves, relayers can, for example, make sure that any withdrawal you make is to an empty wallet with no trading history. So, if the tech is used in the right way and with the right intentions, relayers do present a viable part of the data protection solution.

To learn more about Sahara’s mission of protecting users’ data while reaping the benefits of DeFi, check out our other Medium articles or visit https://sahara.network

What are relayers?

At the most basic level, you can think of relayers as a bus stop between a transaction’s starting point and its destination. In blockchain technology and particularly cryptocurrency, they’re often used as a means of adding extra privacy to a transaction. However, they can also be used to facilitate smoother transactions on the blockchain.

What this means, then, is that relayers are just different kinds of functions in the context of a blockchain transaction. They typically include cryptocurrency wallets and servers, and give blockchain architects and designers the opportunity to define an extra step in the journey between sender and recipient wallet addresses.

It’s all in the name: Relayers relay data from one place to another (in the case of blockchain, from the sender wallet to the recipient wallet) without these two places ever needing to actually connect to each other. They can be used for the purpose of privacy, or for the purpose of making meta-transactions possible.

They’re a stop on the ride — what happens on that stop is up to the driver (ie, the blockchain architect — you get what we mean).

How do relayers work?

OK, so relayers work differently depending on what you want them to do; it’s all in the coding, and so in the specific functionality that the relayers perform. We’ve already established their primary purpose is to relay data — though the ultimate goal of this process varies. So how does it all go down?

Relayers operate on servers (for the most part). When you’re creating their framework, it’s possible to define any logic within those servers. Tell the relayer what to do with the data you give it, and it shall be done.

In terms of the coding, then, each relayer will operate on an individual use case-basis. For example, a relayer could be coded to facilitate the functions of withdrawing or depositing funds, though it will typically hold these multiple functions within the realm of the same server.

How the Sahara protocol uses relayers

In the Sahara protocol, relayers are used as one component within the privacy solution, in addition to anonymity sets. They’re only used at the withdrawal stage, and they’re actually used to cover transaction fees when withdrawing from the protocol.

Why does that matter for privacy?

You can withdraw funds from Sahara to any account, but the ones that don’t have an ETH balance are ideal; these empty wallets work best for privacy purposes, because they cannot be identified by any pre-existing funds sitting in the wallet. For all data protection intents and purposes, the wallet is ‘clean’.

The relayer sends the transaction without changing any withdrawal data (including the recipient address) and takes a part of the recipient wallet’s withdrawal deposit as compensation for the transaction.

This way, the relayers serve a sort of intermediary purpose, like someone covering the cost of your bus ticket — without revealing that you’re the one getting on the bus, for a small cut of what you pay for the ticket.

Why are relayers so important for privacy?

So, for the purpose of privacy, imaginary bus tickets, and in the context of Sahara’s protocol, relayers add an additional layer of privacy to any given transaction, and come into play where transaction fees are concerned.

Let’s say Wallet A deposits 10 tokens to the protocol — and cover the deposit fees.

Meanwhile, Wallet B wants to withdraw these 10 tokens, but Wallet B is an empty wallet (for privacy purposes). Now, because Wallet B is an empty wallet, it would normally (in a non-relayer world) need to buy the funds to cover the transaction fees and so complete the withdrawal.

These funds would come from a third party player, and in order to pay for the fees, the Wallet B holder would be forced to give away their information (ie, their wallet address) to this third party. This is where the relayer Wallet R comes into play. This wallet is used to pay for the withdrawal fees, so the recipient wallet doesn’t need to divulge any data to third parties, and executes the transaction.

This step — the one where Wallet B would have had to give up information to cover transaction fees — is what we might refer to as a weak link in the privacy chain. That third party would hold information about the destination wallet through the purchase of funds for transaction fees. And a relayer removes that possibility by functioning as an intermediary transaction fee payer.

Follow our articles for the rest of this month to learn more about Sahara’s relayer technology and how relayers contribute to solving the blockchain privacy conundrum.

While Sahara and other projects like ours are working to create true, user-friendly privacy in the DeFi space, an all-encompassing solution is still going to take some time. Until we get there, here are five important ways you can protect your privacy in today’s decentralized market.

Keep your trades quiet

OK, so one of the biggest reasons privacy is so difficult to achieve in decentralized finance is the underlying infrastructure these services are built on. A key blockchain pillar is the ledger in which every single transaction ever taken place on that blockchain is recorded. Oh, and that ledger, the one where all the information is, is 100% public.

In other words: Anyone, anywhere with an internet connection can examine any transaction that’s ever been recorded on, say, the Ethereum blockchain.

What stands between linking an individual to their decentralized trades, then? Privacy. That’s why one of the most important things you can do to protect your data in the DeFi market is to keep quiet about your trades.

If you start shouting about your investments or earnings on a public platform like social media, it won’t take an experienced tracker all that much to link you, the individual, to your blockchain transactions. This makes you more vulnerable to hacking or phishing attacks.

Never ever share your passwords or secret key information

This should kind of go without saying, but we’re going to say it anyway: Sharing the passwords or secret keys to your blockchain wallets is like giving away your decentralized fingerprint.

There is no middleman keeping track of your activity on the blockchain — that’s kind of the point of this technology. That also means you’re responsible for your own data protection and privacy, unless you’re using software that makes sure your information remains under lock and key.

If someone other than you gets into your wallet(s), there’s literally nothing you can do about what happens next. There’s no fraud protection or scam police in DeFi, so keep your login data as secret as your grandmother’s family recipes.

Remember, all information is 100% visible on the ledger

Now, we’ve already mentioned the fact that all transaction data is available and public via the blockchain ledger. Another big mistake people make when it comes to DeFi privacy?

They give their wallets personal or recognisable names, which makes the distance between your personal identity and your decentralized activities substantially shorter.

Remember, what you want to avoid is a clear link between yourself and your transaction data. Besides the obvious privacy component (who wants the entire world to see their financial history?) this link, once established, makes it much easier for hackers to attack your DeFi holdings.

So keep your wallet names as long and complicated as possible and resist the temptation of naming them after your cat or favorite TV show.

Be aware of data and location tracking

It’s not just in centralized services that tracking is an issue. In fact, when you’re operating without a third party that holds regulatory power — like Facebook or your bank, for example — tracking tools can be even more detrimental in the DeFi world. It all comes down to data points.

The more data points available, the easier it becomes to connect you to your wallets and transactions.

As the crypto and DeFi markets have expanded and exploded, tracking software that’s optimized for decentralized activity is becoming more and more common. If you have your location tracking active while using social media or maps services, your phone picks up on what we might call an individualized data point.

These types of data points potentially allow hackers and other parties with ill intent to trace transactions with higher and higher accuracy and, if you’re unlucky, you might become a target for crypto theft.

Use a privacy protocol (when possible!)

Finally, a well-functioning privacy protocol is what will ultimately solve the privacy problem in DeFi. But as we’ve mentioned in previous articles, finding the perfect solution that’s user-friendly, hyper-secure, and fully functional is no easy feat.

On the blockchain, innovation takes place on a daily basis and so solutions that were cutting edge yesterday might be void next week.

Our goal, however, is that Sahara will become a viable alternative for DeFi users. A way to make the most of the decentralized world without compromising your identity data or privacy. We believe that the blockchain holds incredible potential for the future and that providing the same level of privacy centralized services do today is a must for DeFi to reach mass adoption.

To learn more about Sahara and the decentralized privacy problem check out our other Medium articles.

We figure it’s a good time, then, to take a small step back and look at the current privacy solutions in DeFi — as well as the pros and cons that go with them.

The Tornado Cash conundrum

You can’t really write an article on DeFi privacy in 2022 without mentioning Tornado Cash. In the beginning of August earlier this year, the US sanctioned this privacy juggernaut, which has been around since the end of 2019. So where TC used to be the most obvious service to mention in privacy discussions pre-sanctions, the status quo has shifted considerably in the past few months.

Why? Because privacy, especially in blockchain-based DeFi services, far too often goes hand in hand with anonymity — and illicit financial activities. So regulatory organizations, like the United States Department of the Treasury impose blanket bans. In the case of Tornado Cash, against mixers.

Mixers are a way to ensure better privacy to users of DeFi solutions. The technology in itself is intended to break a visible link between the sender and recipient. But this functionality is also the perfect format for money laundering when used maliciously, which is exactly why TC was accused of facilitating.

Privacy is tricky, then. It needs to comply with regulations around financial activity, while at the same time providing users with data protection. And on the transparent blockchain ledger, that’s a pretty difficult combo to achieve.

Other tech solutions to DeFi privacy

Mixers are still to be reckoned with as a privacy solution, but with the recent sanctioning of Tornado Cash, privacy projects and protocols are now looking for ways to ensure the combo between compliance and privacy (us at Sahara included!) that ensures project longevity. And there are two other main solutions currently in play:

Zero Knowledge Proofs

Zero Knowledge Proofs or ZKPs are exactly what they sound like: proofs of a transaction, piece of information, or content, that doesn’t publicly disclose any actual information about the data contained within. It’s a great way of ensuring privacy in DeFi solutions because it maintains the security of transaction authentication, without sharing the details of the transaction. In other words: It creates a second step between connecting the individual to a given transaction.

Anonymity sets

Anonymity sets are sets of transactions piled together that ultimately break the link between recipient and sender. A good analogy is finding a specific zebra in a herd of zebras. If you’re trying to figure out where a specific amount of money went (ie, sender wallet and recipient wallet), that endeavour is going to become a whole lot harder if the transaction you’re searching for is sitting in a group of, say, 100 or 1000 other transactions.

User-managed privacy: The biggest solution currently on the market

OK, so we keep referring to privacy as the Achilles’ heel of decentralized finance, and besides being technically difficult to achieve, there’s also the massively complicated and expansive market of products to consider.

Because it’s so hard to develop a solution that’s both user-friendly and all-encompassing, the main solution for DeFi privacy currently around is actually user-managed privacy. Does that mean what you think it means? Yup. With this solution, every single individual user operating on the DeFi market is actually responsible for managing their own privacy.

Now, this has obvious issues. In centralized finance, we’re used to middlemen, like banks, managing our privacy for us. Besides from remembering a PIN code and password, the day-to-day user of financial services won’t know a whole lot about the intricacies of digital privacy.

This is fine in a centralized system where data is kept hidden on a central server. But, as we all know, blockchain technology is based on a public ledger, where every single transaction is recorded with all accompanying information.

Pros and cons of user-managed DeFi privacy

The biggest pro of the type of user-managed privacy outlined above is probably the fact that when it comes to our money, we’re typically hyper-diligent. In other words: If we’re clear on the fact that we’re in charge of keeping our money safe, we’ll likely go to great lengths to keep that money safe.

That kind of personal investment in privacy and data protection is obviously impossible to achieve with a third party.

Still, this is where technological knowledge and awareness comes into play. No matter how much you’d like to make sure you keep your financial affairs private, you won’t be able to if you don’t have the skills necessary to do so.

As we’ve already mentioned, the decentralized financial world is a complicated one. It’s growing at an incredible rate, and innovation takes place on an almost daily basis. Staying on top of all the different steps you need to take in order to keep everything private is difficult. And sometimes, unless you can literally code your own privacy protocol, it’s actually impossible to achieve at the individual level.

Sahara is working to create an all-encompassing, multichain, user-friendly privacy protocol, and we’re excited about being part of this next step on the journey towards decentralized mass adoption. In the meantime, here are our top three tips for maintaining data privacy while you’re operating in the DeFi market:

• Never give your wallet a name that makes it easy to link to your identity
• Never share information about your transactions or investments online (like in a flashy social media post)
• Always keep your key phrases and passwords safely stored

If you want to learn more check out our other articles here on Medium, or go to https://sahara.protocol