We’re excited to announce that BAVO is officially joining the Chainlink BUILD program. As a part of BUILD, we aim to accelerate ecosystem growth and long-term adoption of index products by gaining enhanced access to Chainlink’s industry-leading oracle services and technical support, as well as incentivizing greater cryptoeconomic security, in exchange for a commitment to provide network fees and other benefits to the Chainlink community and service providers, including stakers.

We’re confident that through enhanced support, secure offchain services, and the backing of Chainlink’s vibrant community, we can accelerate awareness of BAVO and realize the adoption of centralized and decentralized index products.

BAVO: Building zkFHE Decentralized Computation Network
BAVO is a decentralized computing network leveraging advanced cryptographic technologies like zkFHE. By using fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), it redefines secure data processing.

BAVO enables computation nodes to handle encrypted data, ensuring both data confidentiality and computation integrity. Its focus on seamless integration offers groundbreaking solutions for secure, decentralized processing.

Why We Joined Chainlink BUILD
BAVO joined BUILD to maximize the benefits of security and reliability that Chainlink’s oracle infrastructure provides. As part of BUILD, BAVO will receive key benefits, including access to and integration of Chainlink Data Feeds for high-quality price data, Chainlink CCIP to support communication between vaults across different blockchains, Functions to securely request and use offchain data, Automation to support perpetuals products, Proof of Reserve to help verify reserves data, along with access to new Chainlink product alpha and beta releases, among other benefits.

In exchange for these services, BAVO will make 3.5% of its native token supply available to Chainlink service providers, including stakers, over time. These mutually aligned economic incentives enable both communities to support one another.

“We’re thrilled to join Chainlink BUILD to gain enhanced access to Chainlink’s industry-leading platform and accelerate the adoption of BAVO’s products. By building cutting-edge, secure onchain index products and bringing our dynamic communities together, we’re set to support the mass adoption of DeFi.” — BAVO Team

About Chainlink

Chainlink is the industry-standard decentralized computing platform powering the verifiable web. Chainlink has enabled over $10 trillion in transaction value by providing financial institutions, startups, and developers worldwide with access to real-world data, offchain computation, and secure cross-chain interoperability across any blockchain. Chainlink powers verifiable applications and high-integrity markets for banking, DeFi, global trade, gaming, and other major sectors.

Learn more about Chainlink by visiting chain.link or reading the developer documentation at docs.chain.link.

About BAVO

Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) enables computations on encrypted data without decryption, supporting outsourced tasks with encrypted private data. However, traditional FHE lacks verifiability, risking incorrect results. BAVO Labs’ zkFHE combines FHE with zero-knowledge proofs to ensure computation integrity while maintaining performance, ideal for confidential and privacy-focused applications.

With the continuous advancement of public blockchains, Web3 applications have entered a new phase of development. These include a wide range of decentralized applications (dApps), such as games, quest systems, content creation platforms, DAOs, soul-bound tokens (SBTs), social networks, decentralized science, and more, which are becoming increasingly dynamic.

In a user-centric Web3 ecosystem, the credit system plays a critical role. Upon examining existing Web3 credit systems, it’s evident that most of them, especially within DeFi, focus on generating credit scores based solely on on-chain behaviors. Projects such as Spectral.finance, ARCx.money, RociFi, Credora, and others primarily analyze on-chain transaction history to assign credit scores, which are used for lending and other financial services.

A key challenge in this approach is the limited scope of on-chain data, which weakens the ability to create comprehensive user profiles. In most systems, traditional big data and machine learning models require large datasets to accurately predict user behavior. This raises an important question: how can new data sources be introduced to improve the credibility of Web3 credit systems?

zkAttestation: A Cryptography-Based Solution for Web3 Credit Systems

PADO’s zkAttestation technology, a cryptographic solution for off-chain data validity, offers a way to enhance the Web3 credit ecosystem. The credit credentials generated by zkAttestation can enrich decentralized applications, including DeFi credit protocols and identity-based services.

How zkAttestation Works

zkAttestation uses advanced cryptographic techniques like Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) to verify user data without compromising privacy. When a user accesses personal data on the internet through the TLS protocol, the user’s device and the zkAttestation attestor (a service running cryptographic algorithms) collaborate through a secure two-party computation (2PC) protocol to perform TLS operations. From the data source’s perspective, it interacts only with the user, unaware of the attestor’s presence. The attestor ensures the data’s authenticity and integrity by generating a signature based on the TLS protocol.

For sensitive data, Interactive Zero-Knowledge Proofs (IZK) can be employed to verify the data while minimizing privacy exposure. For example, a user could prove that their total spending on the Steam platform exceeds $100 without revealing the exact amount. The zkAttestation attestor would then certify this proof.

Key Cryptographic Techniques Used:

• MPC-TLS: This is an advanced implementation of TLS using 2PC protocols to secure communication between the client and the internet server. The zkAttestation attestor and TLS client work together to establish a secure TLS channel, ensuring data confidentiality and integrity.
• IZK: Interactive Zero-Knowledge Proofs allow for the verification of a statement without revealing additional information. IZK is scalable, cost-effective, and avoids trust assumptions.

Interoperable and Composable Credit Credentials

zkAttestation enables off-chain data validation, which can be seamlessly integrated into Web3’s reputation ecosystem through credit credentials. To facilitate the flow and utility of these credentials, community consensus and standardization are essential. Credit credentials could include:

• Data Descriptions: Encapsulated in a common format (e.g., JSON), containing details like data source address, data type, user identity, and public data.
• Private Data Credentials: Optional private data, with privacy conditions and verification results.
• Cryptographic Signature: A standard signature (e.g., ECDSA, EDDSA) recognized by the Web3 community.

Verifying these credentials is straightforward, involving signature validation and data extraction.

Currently, Web3 credit systems require users to accumulate on-chain activity over time to build a positive reputation. zkAttestation’s credit credentials overcome this limitation by incorporating diverse data dimensions, making them interoperable across DeFi credit protocols and other identity-based applications. These credentials can be composed modularly, much like building blocks.

For example, a game dApp might grant early access to NFT equipment based on a player’s credit credentials, such as time spent on traditional gaming platforms. A DeFi credit protocol might improve risk models by incorporating off-chain identity data, consumption records, and asset certificates. This approach aggregates value and user insights across different applications, driving significant user engagement and enhancing the Web3 ecosystem.

Interoperability Across Blockchains

Credit credential verification and integration are independent of any specific blockchain, relying only on public-key cryptographic algorithms widely used across different chains. zkAttestation credit credentials are inherently compatible with various blockchain ecosystems, promoting broader interoperability.

The Future of the Web3 Credit Ecosystem

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” — Lao Tzu

Drawing inspiration from Web2’s credit systems, the development of Web3’s credit ecosystem will likely focus on the following areas:

• Interoperability of Credit Data: Connecting isolated credit protocols across different chains will be essential as Layer2 solutions diversify and various public chains coexist.
• Expansion of Credit Applications: Beyond DeFi and financial services, the credit system will extend to real-world applications, supporting a wider range of use cases.
• Privacy Respect: While blockchain inherently makes credit data public, protecting user privacy remains a challenge. Future systems may allow conditional access to a user’s credit profile.

zkAttestation-based credit credentials offer a path forward for building a robust Web3 credit ecosystem. As cryptographic techniques and Web3 technologies evolve, interoperable credit systems will connect with on-chain protocols, just as today’s composable DeFi applications do. Ultimately, a borderless user ecosystem driven by trust, transparency, and reputation will emerge, offering a new level of security and reliability for users.

Recently, the Ethereum developer conference ETHDenver was in full swing, and a somewhat unfamiliar term “Attestation” was mentioned by many developers. Meanwhile, Ethereum has launched a public good called Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS) to support the creation, verification, and revocation of various attestations. In a slightly convoluted sense, attestation is a statement about the authenticity of certain information endorsed by an endorser. Three types of roles are defined within an attestation system: Attestors, Verifiers, and Users. An attestor is responsible for issuing attestations for users, with the validity of these attestations are verified and guaranteed by verifiers.

To explain the basic idea of EAS, a simple story is like this: a university (Attestor) issues a digitalized graduation certificate (attestation) to a graduate (User) by signing with the university’s private key. The certificate can be verified and accepted by a certain event organizer (Verifier) to reduce the graduate’s registration fees. Furthermore, the certificate contains specific information about the student, signed with the university’s private key, and is stored on Ethereum (see here). Any third-party application can access and verify it at any time. Such a certificate can also be placed off-chain for the privacy purpose.

(source: https://docs.attest.sh/)

The launch of EAS undoubtedly builds a public infrastructure for various Web 3.0 applications, including DID, SBT, reputation systems, DeFi, and more. EAS provides the ability for anyone to define a business model (schema) that specifies the data types, formats, and composition of proof, which can be used by any developers or users. Anyone can create attestations as an Attestor, and anyone can verify on-chain attestations that meet a specific schema. Attestations can be stored on-chain or off-chain depending on the use-cases.

With a relatively loose paradigm, i.e., requiring two Solidity contracts, EAS has created a decentralized public attestation service. Considering a traditional centralized attestation system, such as Discord, where massive attestation data about user roles are stored at the back-end servers. Such attestation data cannot be freely transferred or used across platforms, and it cannot be automatically revoked once users delete their accounts. In contrast, a significant advantage of EAS is decentralization, which ensures that any applications can use EAS’s attestation data to improve the transparency and composability. EAS can be implemented and deployed directly on Ethereum mainnet, or on L2 networks like Arbitrum.

(source: https://attest.sh/)

From a business perspective, EAS and other attestation systems can be leveraged for developing techniques like sybil resistance and on-chain governance. The attestation framework could be gradually expanded and integrated with off-chain attestations, to be facilitated with complicated scenarios such as physical access control, customer crediting, and carbon footprint, etc.

Data authenticity, a non-negligible issue.

Data authenticity is a security property which ensures the provided data is from the claimed sender, as well as the implied integrity meaning the data has not been tampered with during the transmission.

| Data authentication consists of data integrity and data origin authentication. With data integrity the recipient can be sure that the data has not changed. Data origin authentication proves to the recipient that the stated sender has originated the data. — Chapter 3, ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 Protocol Layers

The development with on-chain attestations will be very promising, thanks to the core features of blockchains for the transparency and integrity. However, the situation changes when dealing with off-chain data.

One sample is about using off-chain data for on-chain service. Alice logs into a defi application. She is willing to provide personal financial information (such as bank details and account statements) for discounted loan services from the defi application. The critical issue is to find who can guarantee the authenticity of Alice’s personal financial information?

• Banks can provide a stamped proof, but such a proof is hard to be formatted and verified by the defi application.
• Alice can promise the provided financial information is accurate. However, such a promise is not safe when someone uses a fake identity to obtain illegal gains through flash loans.

In fact, the verification towards off-chain data is usually intentionally or unintentionally avoided. Usually, we are unable to check whether the data claimed by users is correct or not, no matter if it’s about personal age, gender, or even off-chain assets.

zkAttestation, to verify off-chain data

Fortunately, developers are not powerless on such problems. Off-chain data cannot be encoded as various forms, like text, images, videos or even binary code. And most of the user-generated off-chain data can be collected by users themselves via standard channels, such as HTTPS/TLS.

| Hint: HTTPS is an HTTP channel with extra security. By setting up a TLS layer on top of HTTP protocol, it provides data confidentiality and integrity for communications between the two parties of an internet application.