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Not a lot of people would’ve envisaged that a seemingly intangible technology could be giving traditional finance serious competition.
Meanwhile, the advent of blockchain, a distributed ledger that maintains an ever-growing list of data blocks containing batches of transactions free from tampering, has revolutionized finance forever.
Its possibilities and limits are enormous and far-reaching. But the area that blockchain technology is providing much-needed solutions is in the security and privacy of user data.
Privacy is arguably one of the main selling points of blockchain technology. There’s a lot to be chipped in about it at a high level, especially with privacy-oriented blockchain firms like Manta Network, PARSIQ, and others stepping things up.
In this article, we’ll discuss some of the leading blockchain projects that take privacy to another level as they offer solutions to the industry’s leading challenges.
Can Blockchain Solve The World’s Growing Privacy Issue?
Blockchain technology has a lot of potential going forward, but it still faces some questions and stumbling blocks when it comes to mass adoption.
One of those questions is whether or not blockchain can solve growing personal privacy issues the world is accustomed to in traditional systems? Beyond traditional systems, we’ve experienced several hacks in various crypto exchanges that raise the questions of security and reliability on blockchains.
However, both critics and blockchain experts might agree on the fact that blockchain is miles ahead of traditional systems as far as the subject of security is concerned. More so, personal privacy and data protection with blockchain may well just push it towards mass and mainstream adoption.
Technology experts believe that blockchain technology could be replacing things like passwords and usernames in the long run.
Blockchain will do this by giving the world personalized and encrypted digital identity to help manage all aspects of online private/personal information and records.
But one of the most significant issues with hoping to build personal privacy protection via blockchain is that protection and privacy mean different things when applied.
What Privacy and Protection Means For Blockchain Technology and Its Users
On the one hand, a user’s privacy is their ability to determine the sort of information that blockchain-based and other tech platforms collect about them. Think of when you visit some websites. These sites sometimes collect data on songs and videos you stream, products you buy, and even the times you do these things.
On the other hand, a user’s privacy is just about how secured their data is when relevant authorized parties have gathered it. Privacy is a right, and blockchain technology has the responsibility of ensuring that this right is maintained strictly, keeping user trust intact.
While users won’t be able to delete the data that blockchain technology and its platforms collect—for instance, on visits to certain websites—they can turn off the access to the related node of the blockchain.
Doing so helps ensure that no additional party knows that the user visited the website in question. That is just one of the ways that blockchain technology can be used to preserve user privacy and protect their data/information.
Data protection and personal privacy are areas with great potential, and some blockchain-based platforms may already be nudging us into a future filled with platforms and protocols that are well and truly privacy-preserving.
Let’s look at some of the leading projects that prioritize privacy and see how they work— to achieve this.
A Privacy-Preserving DeFi Stack For The Polkadot Ecosystem
Manta Network sets out to solve some underlying issues that the blockchain space has with privacy.
With interoperability and usability still both features susceptible to issues for blockchain technology, there’s always been a need for a private and interoperable protocol for decentralized finance stack.
Polkadot’s Manta Network is a veritable solution to these issues, acting as a privacy-preserving DeFi stack while building an interoperable privacy layer for an increasingly popular ecosystem, Polkadot.
Manta Network offers various services powered by its ZKP-based privacy tech to blockchain users when it launches. One of its two premier services is MantaPay, which Manta Network plans to exploit to power the on-chain privacy of the Polkadot ecosystem.
The second service is a decentralized exchange, MantaSwap, which the network is building as a layer-1 solution. What this means is that privacy will exist in the exchange’s core architecture instead of it being a feature on a blockchain.
MantSwap has a way of effectively stopping bots from incessantly front-running trades while preventing criminals who want to link users’ wallet addresses to their identities in the real world.
It calls its concept that shuns link analysis on transaction history and impedes privacy preservation in a token economy PriFi or privacy finance.
It recently secured USD 5.5 million in a funding round involving more than 30 venture funds, including ParaFi Capital, CoinFund, LongHash Ventures, and CMS Holdings, among others. While Manta Networks plans to use the funds to scale up its existing value proposition, it’s also intensifying its efforts towards winning a Polkadot Parachain slot.
Overall, Manta Network should strengthen the general level of privacy in DeFi. The network is working hard at this goal by obscuring or complicating users’ wallet addresses to allow users to exchange privacy and transact without problems.
Extra Layer Of Monitoring And Automation For Blockchain-Specific Asset Management
PARSIQ is one privacy-oriented platform that puts an extra layer of monitoring and automation into blockchain-related asset management. The data and automation platform helps connect blockchain activities to relevant real-world applications.
PARSIQ is on track to become the ideal enabler for the widespread adoption of blockchain tech. What’s more, the data and automation platform is helping users understand their technological needs while providing them with training and much-needed support.
PARSIQ can also help you to keep track of API changes and other related issues. The platform hopes to achieve this by giving people the opportunity to understand and manipulate blockchain data streams spread across several infrastructures and mediums.
Meanwhile, some of the top projects from Web2 and Web3 are picking PARSIQ as their preferred space to create middleware, build infrastructure, automate solutions, and even data processing.
How Do Blockchain Platforms Handle Data Silos?
Data silos are high-security risks and hot spots for hackers. You get data silos when internet users register for platforms and services. These services collect and accumulate users in their millions, and where there are users, there are often user data, some of which are sensitive.
There's a need for individual control of very important aspects of a user’s personal data and how it is shared. This is something most blockchain-based services turn a blind eye to.
Meanwhile, being verifiable, revocable, and anonymous are three important features of blockchain technology. Yet, some platforms based on blockchain technology struggle to deliver on all three.
Kilt is a blockchain identity protocol built on the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. It issues anonymous, self-sovereign, and verifiable claims-based credentials in web 3.0.
The platform is equally privacy-oriented, and it helps users validate their online identities. By doing so, it eliminates the need for companies to collect sensitive user data and passwords.
The Kilt protocol is not just a privacy-preserving innovative platform but a move to involve the wider software industry and firms looking for heightened data sovereignty and more trust in web3.
One of the perks of Kilt is that it is a universal model for permitting objects, machines, individuals, and organizations to claim arbitrary attributes. What’s more, they get to validate them with trusted entities as well.
Kilt offers relevant mechanisms that permit claim holders to have control of their data. Such an innovative and interesting feature means they can store information and select disclosable information and their recipients.
The blockchain protocol provides users access to the Trust Market for Attesters. This opens the door for trusted organizations to affix prices to relevant attestation work and get paid while at it.
Meanwhile, Kilt Protocol also hopes to support new business models for people who own trust or are looking to build it. What’s more, it comes with a basic JavaScript SDK. Here, people can build useful and relevant applications even without blockchain development skills.
Conclusion
Privacy is a big talking point in the blockchain space as users, and key actors yearn for more privacy-oriented platforms.
In more ways than one, privacy is undoubtedly one of the main selling points of blockchain technology, and it deserves all the attention and innovative improvements it can get.
Platforms and protocols Kilt, Manta Network, and PARSIQ are closest to the ideal we expect from privacy-oriented solutions.