HONG KONG (Commonwealth union)_ Input Output Global (IOG), the company behind the Cardano blockchain, is introducing a new privacy-focused blockchain called Midnight and a coin called dust.
Midnight, which is based on zero-knowledge-proof technology, is one of many side chains that are now being deployed around Cardano, and will go beyond previous privacy-coin projects by delivering zero-knowledge-proof smart contracts, according to IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson, who spoke at an event at Edinburgh University in Scotland on Friday.
When authorization is granted, the system will walk the line between protecting privacy and providing regulators and auditors with a backdoor into the system, he said.
“Midnight has evolved privacy-coin technology so everything is anonymous by default, which is what Zcash and Monero did with Snarks and ring signatures,” Hoskinson told CoinDesk, alluding to two other privacy currencies and their encryption methods. “This is an entirely new method of creating and executing private smart contracts and private computation. So you could have a private DEX (decentralised exchange) or go mining an anonymous data collection or something like that.”
Privacy coins have long been lauded by crypto libertarians, but regulators are wary about the technology’s potential to facilitate financial crime.
However, Hoskinson added that privacy is something that every corporation is legally required to investigate these days, despite the difficulties of figuring out how to add privacy to blockchains. “You need programmability; you can’t just fork Zcash and expect it to function,” the IOG CEO explained. “What was required was the ability to write this stuff in a normal programming language, not some crazy Snark thing, but something developers can understand and have an assurance you had privacy.”
According to Hoskinson, an IOG study titled ‘Kachina’ which delves into privacy-enhanced smart contracts, is now coming to fruition in the real world. This has sparked interest in the once-hyped realm of enterprise blockchains, he said, adding that Midnight will be collaborating with Hyperledger, a consortium of large firms investigating private and permissioned ledgers for applications such as supply-chain management.
