The Namada Mission
Privacy is the freedom to reveal& THIS FREEDOM IS FOR EVERYONE
Today, we live in a space caught between a current world dominated by pervasive surveillance and a singular cultural narrative, and a potential future where privacy safeguards freedom and diverse cultural expressions thrive. Namada is a network of individuals and communities united around one mission:
To build a portal between public and private worlds.
Why Privacy
Privacy isn't just about concealment; it's about choice and freedom. The concept extends far beyond the physical world and into the digital arena, where it takes on a nuanced but equally critical role. Privacy should not be a luxury or an add-on; it must be fundamental. Public blockchains, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, do not yet offer this flexibility, thus limiting their transformative potential.
For Namada, privacy isn't just an option—it's a mission-critical feature.
The Evolution of Privacy in Crypto
Understanding the trajectory of privacy in the blockchain ecosystem is essential. To understand where we are, it is helpful to zoom out and examine the broad patterns of privacy over time. We can understand privacy-in-crypto as happening in three eras: the era of privacy as an asset, the era of privacy as a service, and the era of privacy as a default. Let's break it down:
Privacy as an asset
The era of privacy as an asset started with Zcash. Zcash extended the Bitcoin protocol with privacy in an attempt to launch a privacy-preserving currency for the internet. In this era, there were many competing cryptocurrencies or “altcoins” (usually forked from Bitcoin, like Zcash), and assets and features were tightly coupled - you could choose to either use Zcash and get privacy, or use some other cryptocurrency without it, but you couldn't choose to use Zcash's privacy with your asset of choice, because there was no interoperability.
Privacy as a service
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The era of privacy as a service started with the launch of Tornado Cash on Ethereum. In this era, blockchains are interoperable, so assets and features are not so tightly coupled - but privacy is still scarce in the interoperable crypto ecosystem, and you have to move your assets to those places in order to get it. We’re still in this era - projects such as Tornado Cash, Namada, Penumbra, and Nocturne 5 all aim to provide privacy as a service that you can use with your existing assets.
Privacy as a default
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The era of privacy as a default still lies far in the future. In particular, privacy as a default will require a perfect fusion of privacy and interoperability. Regardless of the mechanism, in order for privacy as a default to even be conceivable, we need more privacy now. Most blockchains are public, and most assets aren't shielded. Zcash demonstrated that privacy on a blockchain was possible, but no one has yet managed to make it practical for the majority of blockchain ecosystem users.
It is for this reason that we started Namada.
The mission of Namada is to build a portal between these public and private worlds.