Panther Protocol FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions about Panther Protocol as a whole.
The latest advances in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) offer the opportunity to evolve the way we share data, with new methodologies that are trustworthy, safe, and acceptable to all parties. Harnessing these developments, Panther has built a generalizable, cross-chain protocol that enables a “privacy toggle” for managing digital asset transactions. Panther allows any market actor, from institutions to retail users, to protect their financial movements from the intrinsic faults of transparent ledgers by leveraging zero-knowledge proofs to rewrite the rules of DeFi.
Panther works by using zero-knowledge proofs, namely zkSNARKS in a multi-chain environment, to create fully collateralized, privacy-enhancing versions of ordinary digital assets. For a deeper dive into what zero-knowledge proofs are, please see “Privacy Enhancement Stack” below. Unlike typical tokens, Panther’s shielded assets (zAssets) cannot be traced, can be used across different blockchains and distributed applications, and have data trails that can be selectively revealed by their users. Panther, in this way, lets users decide who gets to look at their transaction history.
Panther also offers a compliant solution to what is arguably the biggest challenge facing DeFi: Onboarding institutions, legacy players, and FinTech companies into the new financial paradigm so that the industry can grow by several orders of magnitude.
Currently, DeFi offers an inhospitable environment to these market makers for the reasons mentioned above. Not only does the transparency of ledgers create an unfriendly environment for capital institutions and professional traders (whose reputation rests on their ability to outperform the market): It actively creates downsides for them if they choose to use these solutions. Without a serious upgrade, this remains unlikely to change any time soon, while threats and instability can be too dangerous to meet the requirements of fiduciary responsibility.
Panther offers a breakthrough for all market actors by using PETs to dramatically reduce these risks. Strategies can be both protected from observers while also selectively disclosed to tax and compliance authorities. Panther uses privacy to give users a granular level of control and an unparalleled sense of protection. The protocol invites financial professionals to return to the true promise of DeFi by saving time, removing intermediaries, and unlocking new, composable possibilities.
Panther is an end-to-end privacy protocol connecting blockchains to restore privacy in Web3 and DeFi while providing financial institutions a clear path to compliantly participate in digital asset markets.
Panther provides DeFi users with fully collateralized privacy-enhancing digital assets, leveraging crypto-economic incentives and zkSNARKs technology. Users can mint zero-knowledge zAssets by depositing digital assets from any blockchain into Panther vaults. zAssets flow across blockchains via a privacy-first interchain DEX and a private metastrate. Panther envisions that zAssets will become an ever-expanding asset class for users who want their transactions and strategies the way they should always have been: private.
Maybe the most significant differentiator that Panther has over its competitors is its unique approach to compliance. Other 'Privacy' networks do not provide privacy. Instead, they provide private solutions, varying in their use cases and design.
None of the solutions above allows their users to disclose information to 3rd parties like financial institutions, their accountant, or the tax department for compliance purposes using zero-knowledge proofs, what we call Panther 'Reveals'.
In addition, we have the ability to interact with other protocols via adapters; this will allow Panther to provide privacy to other existing protocols.
We also aim to integrate private interchain transfers, which leverages game-theoretic aspects to provide privacy at the lowest price point that could be achieved.
Beyond that, Panther offers unique Multi-Asset Shielded Pools. These specialized zero-knowledge pools allow users to bring privacy to a heterogeneous asset base where different assets contribute to the collective privacy threshold of all assets.
When you think of this from the perspective of the crypto long tail of small-cap assets and even NFTs, Panther is enabling trillions of dollars in a nascent industry to benefit from compliance compatible privacy.
Panther builds upon the idea of wrapped tokens to enable the creation of shielded digital assets or tokens that are infused with privacy, called zAssets. These are 1-to-1 collateralized, untraceable digital tokens that harness the power of zero-knowledge proofs to give the user full control over what information is disclosed about their transaction history.
Right now, if a user wants to send a large amount of USDC from their wallet to a DeFi protocol, they run the risk of being attacked or front-run in transit. Using Panther, however, the process is far safer and more discreet. First, the user deposits USDC into a Panther Vault smart contract, which mints the corresponding amount of zUSDC from within a Panther Pool smart contract. The user can then transact with zUSDC in any way they may want to, with the full benefits of enhanced privacy. When a user’s transactions are complete and they want to redeem zUSDC for the original underlying currency, their collateralized USDC is sent to a new stealth address and the corresponding zUSDC is burned and removed from circulation.
Panther Protocol proposes a new asset class called zero-knowledge assets (zAssets), fully collateralized, privacy-enhancing assets that are interoperable and composable with existing DeFi infrastructure. They are derivatives of other typically non-private cryptoassets (e.g., ERC-20 tokens and similar).
A zAsset is pegged 1:1 to its underlying cryptoasset, which is locked as collateral in Panther Vaults -autonomous, zero-knowledge, self-custodial smart contracts which act as decentralized custodians for collateral of zAssets. A zAsset’s collateral may be partially or fully redeemed by burning some or all of the minted zAssets.
We believe zAssets will become an ever-expanding asset class. Stablecoins, utility tokens, and NFTs will all become infused with privacy. Institutional DeFi and Web3 require privacy to scale and disrupt legacy systems.
Instead of users sharing their personal information with every institution or protocol they interact with, Panther instead allows them to interact only once with only one trusted party (a Trust Provider) per use case (e.g. one for proof of address, one for identity, etc.) which can verify their information and issue a signed cryptographic attestation. This interaction is referred to as a Panther Reveal. Users can then use these attestations to issue an unforgeable mathematical proof, verifiable on- and off-chain, which can be referenced and verified by Service Providers.
This serves as sufficient evidence that the user is in possession of whatever attributes, credentials, or reputation is needed in order to participate in a transaction, with selective sharing of personal data. The user has an option to make a given Panther Reveal zero-knowledge (carrying no personal data), or non-ZK (carrying personal data). Both would be verifiable by anyone if submitted on-chain. Furthermore, ZK Reveals are generalizable across other segments such as private identity, insurance, credit scoring, Web3 authentication and other services.
Panther Reveals let users share as much or as little information as they want to on a case-by-case basis. Panther does not learn anything about any user, and those receiving proofs only learn the disclosed data. Once a Service Provider receives a Panther ZK Reveal, they do not get to learn what the underlying information is, only that the proofs are valid and the users’ claims are true. Not only that, but the Trust Providers who issued the attestations never learn anything about when or how users use those attestations when interacting with Service Providers.
$ZKP tokens are ERC-20 tokens and can be stored in any ERC-20 compliant wallet. The Panther Wallet will be a browser-based self-custodial wallet. Creating an app is not currently on the roadmap, but it would be nice to have one, although they present a legal environment that we’d have to navigate.
That said, Panther already has third-party wallet partnerships in place, and this will be to make the user experience seamless. This type of business development will continue. The Panther Wallet will simplify the user experience and make protocol interaction easier — things like providing liquidity in Panther Pools, for example.
Panther empowers DeFi users with full privacy while also providing different levels of disclosures for certain transactions.
If you look at fully transparent transactions on DeFi vs. Private transactions, you are looking at the opposite ends of the privacy spectrum. While fully transparent transactions enable a surveillance economy where individual freedoms and competitive advantages are lost, fully private transactions could push us towards a state of anarchy, which is also difficult to align with our world's current modus operandi.
So we are proposing two middle-ground solutions:
- 1.Zero-knowledge disclosures: Users can prove compliance without providing any underlying data. This provides financial institutions with what they need (to know you did everything according to a particular rules engine) without having to disclose anything about the transaction itself. Sender, receiver, amounts, and metadata all remain private.
- 2.Full disclosure to a specific counterparty: The user allows their transactional data to be shared with a financial institution or regulator. This is already much better than having all of your transactions fully public/transparent for anyone to see perpetually.
The more transactions and liquidity in the Panther pools, the better for privacy. There is a minimum threshold for both the number of transactions and liquidity — that guarantees that a transaction will remain private. Only if the minimum threshold is met will the protocol allow for transactions to go through; it will not let anyone use it if privacy is not guaranteed.
That said, the way we get the pools to have the liquidity we want them to have is by rewarding privacy miners for providing liquidity. We are in touch with various institutional liquidity providers to ensure that our private pools will be robust from day one, bootstrapping privacy into our protocol and making the technology usable.
Game theory mechanics supports these thresholds by dynamically adjusting the transaction fees to incentivize liquidity and transaction count. It's worth noting that our game theory advisor Akaki Mamageishvili is one of the most notable experts in the field, and that our tech team has decades of cybersecurity and cryptography experience. For that reason, we are confident that we have the right people on deck to deliver on this.
Certainly, it does aim to be chain agnostic and cross-chain. Panther Protocol will initially run on Polygon, then Ethereum, and ultimately run on a number of peerchains, including (but not limited to) Bitcoin, Ethereum, Casper, NEAR, Flare, Tendermint, Avalanche, and Ouroboros.
We have put quite a bit of effort into security. Between the core members of the team, we probably have at least 40+ yrs of experience in security and cryptography, and two of our team members have published attacks on SSL and IPsec. In addition, we have been involved in securing other blockchain ecosystems. We believe this will help us with securing our protocol. We also have a few existing relationships already in place with security audit firms.
Security is our top priority. Users of Panther will be using the most secure privacy protocol for their assets.
Panther development is guided by in-house security expertise. Our co-founder and CTO Anish has 20+ years of experience in security and cryptography, is an early advisor to Ripple, and reviewed the Ethereum orange paper. Our team has over 40 years of cumulative expertise in security and has worked on securing some well-known protocols in this space.
Zafari is Panther’s Incentivized Testing program, launched on May 19, 2022. Panther community members can participate by claiming test tokens in Polygon’s or Ethereum’s Testnets and using Panther’s testnet deployments with an eye out for bugs, UI errors, and all kinds of possible improvements.
By reporting their findings to the Panther team, users are rewarded for their efforts with real $ZKP (or $zZKP). New Zafari testing rounds are announced on the Panther Blog.
The balance of privacy and transparency is a tough one to achieve, and we need to find the right balance. We assume that the community would guide itself to where we would end up in the spectrum. As Panther Protocol evolves, the holders of ZKP could put up proposals to change the way we operate. Our protocol is architected to accommodate the broadest possible set of choices.
No. Panther is a decentralized zero-knowledge protocol built without any trusted setup. Admins do not control the smart contracts, and privacy is enforced by strong encryption and privacy defaults.
The Panther Protocol does not keep lists, maps, registers, dates, nor any other document on Panther users. The network is unable to ascertain the parties to a transaction.
To those who would argue that every transaction should always be transparent and public, it is important to ask the question: would you be happy to show the world your bank statements?
This applies to both individuals and institutions. Individuals may wish not to disclose certain payments — for example, where it implies a link to a particular person or organization where discretion may be preferred, or simply because they do not want their friends and neighbors to know how much money they have.
Institutions acting on behalf of customers may need to obfuscate transactions from the general public to provide their clients with the degree of privacy to which they are accustomed. And institutional trading desks may have thousands of entirely valid reasons for not wanting to open up their activities to the scrutiny of competitors — the risk of being front-run, for example.
We want to offer privacy, but we are not looking to get piracy. We ensure that all zAssets minted are compliant when they arrive onto the Panther network. This is a first layer of compliance.
A second layer of compliance is that users can reveal their transactions to whoever they want without compromising the privacy of others. Users of Panther have all they need to remain compliant in their jurisdiction.
We plan to give all Panther users all the necessary tools to show their transaction history if they wish to remain compliant with their local regulations. Zero-knowledge proofs technology ensures that they can do so without compromising the confidentiality of the whole ecosystem or its users.
Panther Protocol is an open-source project, and anyone can contribute to it in their own capacity. Many people are actively helping the project in various ways, like engaging in the community chat or connecting the team with relevant partners and contributors.
As the project grows, there will be more opportunities for the community to get involved. To put this into tangible economic terms, the Panther DAO will be responsible for allocating 45% of ZKP over the next 12 years. The Foundation has 8% of the token supply as well, so over 50% of all ZKP are governed directly by the community or by the Foundation, where the Foundation’s roles are to advance privacy in digital economies and to foster Panther's decentralization.
Panther has investor partners in South Korea, China, Vietnam, Denmark, and other non-English speaking jurisdictions. Our roadmap includes developing resources to translate our content into multiple languages as well.
Panther also has an ongoing Ambassador program in which content creators from different parts of the world translate and create Panther content dedicated to their communities. You can find Panther communities in:
The Panther Team hosts zTalks, a monthly podcast showcasing Panther’s recent developments, the milestones we have or are about to reach, and an insider view on many of our initiatives. You can watch zTalks on Panther’s YouTube channel.
Panther Academy is yet another excellent initiative from Panther for the crypto space. With Panther Academy, we hope to provide access to high-quality crypto education, even for topics that our audience—who are mostly ardent privacy enthusiasts—might see as basic.
Panther Academy means we now have a dedicated space on our blog where anyone who wants to learn more about crypto, DeFi, and privacy may do so.
Panther started when our co-Founders met at a crypto conference —Autonomy 2040— and realized that both had the same concerns about on-chain surveillance and how DeFi can benefit from privacy solutions. They realized that they had complementary strengths and knowledge that combined well with their desire to bring change, so they started to talk regularly and then develop an idea. The idea attracted a lot of talented people who stood behind it and wanted to help.
The team gained experience in leading organizations across a broad spectrum of verticals such as the United Nations, Accenture, BlackRock, P&G, Vimeo, Siemens, UFC, DELL, HSBC, and Lloyds Bank. In Blockchain specifically, team members contributed to over 55 blockchain projects, including Ethereum, Ripple, Avalanche, Ocean Protocol, Boson Protocol, and blockchain.com. The last time we counted, we had a cumulative experience of 50+ years in the Blockchain industry, 66 years in Finance, and 40+ years in Cryptography.
At the moment, Panther has a globally distributed team of several people and a number of advisors. The most recent list of publicly-disclosed team members can be found at all times on our website. Our team is growing at an accelerated pace and hiring the very best people we can find, so if you’re looking for a career, please e-mail [email protected].
Stellium is the company (legal entity) that develops Panther in its initial stages until it becomes fully decentralized and control is handed over to the Panther DAO. Every project starts with a certain degree of centralization and moves towards decentralization.
We have partnered with Flare Network to deploy our privacy solution there and provide private interoperability to the largest blockchain ecosystems incapable of running smart contracts natively.
This partnership is very significant for Panther as we increase our interoperability. Most importantly, it provides access to approximately 65% of the total value in public networks that are currently not accessible to smart contract platforms. This includes Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple's XRP Ledger, Dogecoin, Stellar, and any other existing chain.
Please see the Staking FAQ for info on staking rewards, and the Rewards FAQ for info on other rewards.
Last modified 1yr ago