The Next Layer of Composability: Private Yield with Beefy x RAILGUN

Zero Knowledge (ZK) Summer 2023 is rapidly picking up steam, and we’re not even officially past Spring yet! We here at Beefy are super excited as we see new and emerging use cases rapidly coming to fruition, including the latest and greatest ways to access your Beefy yields.

In our last ZK update, we reviewed the premise and the promise of this new technology, and particularly how it’s being used to scale blockchain transactions. But you’d be wrong to think that ZK is just about transactions, or even blockchains. By abstracting proof from ownership, ZK unlocks thousands of new use cases across hundreds of fields, and can help mankind to achieve true trustlessness, increased efficiency, greater privacy and new composability. And there’s a lot more still waiting to be explored…

Today we’re pleased to announce the integration of Beefy’s vaults on RAILGUN - a protocol that allows users to interact with DeFi on EVM chains privately and without leaving their preferred ecosystem. With Beefy on RAILGUN, users now have the flexibility to design their yield portfolios with the level of disclosure they prefer, whenever and wherever they want it.

RAILGUN

RAILGUN is a smart contract system which relies on the power of ZK cryptography to facilitate arbitrary contract calls without publicizing the details of the caller. In short, though actions taken in transactions are visible, callers of transactions are not exposed, and no links are established between addresses and specific transactions.. The result is the protection of personal information such as wallet balances, addresses and transaction history, which is otherwise made public by default on any blockchain. This solution promises to add an entirely new layer of composability and functionality on top of existing smart contracts. For instance:

• for personal information, like salary and bonus entitlements, RAILGUN facilitates on-chain payments without disclosing their individual values;
• in a competitive environment, RAILGUN can mask the transactions of individual competitors from one another to protect against cheating/plagiarism;
• for large trading activities or smaller markets, RAILGUN can facilitate transactions that may otherwise cause reactions in the market if seen to be connected or from the same source;
• for on-chain use cases involving personal data, RAILGUN can help to achieve compliance by dividing the transaction data between the public and the private; and
• for people and entities in the public eye, RAILGUN can restore some privacy and flexibility where otherwise their actions are invasively scrutinized.

The protocol works by allowing users to “shield” and “unshield” their tokens, meaning transferring them to and from a private “0zk” address (which is generated from the same key as your public address, but never exposed or publicly linked to any public address). The RAILGUN protocol charges a 0.25% transaction fee on shielding transactions, and all fees are distributed to the RAILGUN DAO over time through its active governor rewards.

RAILGUN launched in July 2021 with the release of the $RAIL governance token on Ethereum. Users can stake their $RAIL through the protocol’s governance platform to vote on upgrades and fee shielding. You can also access $RAIL on Polygon, BSC and Arbitrum, where Polygon and BSC operate as their own separate DAOs and Arbitrum as a bridged version of the Ethereum token.

To get started, head over to RAILGUN partner project - Railway Wallet - and import or create a RAILGUN-compatible wallet, just like you would with MetaMask. Once you have a wallet loaded, you’ll be issued a connected “0zk” address. You can toggle between your public and private wallets in the top right hand corner, and then use the app to shield assets in your public wallet, which transfers them into your private wallet.

Beefy x RAILGUN

Sounds impressive, right? But you may be wondering how RAILGUN’s cutting-edge technology relates to the Beefy vaults you know and love… Well RAILGUN has now officially announced support for Beefy’s vaults through its protocol, meaning you’ll be able to get all the benefits of Beefy’s incredible yields, with the added composability and functionality of RAILGUN.

Say for example, you’re a developer for a big name DeFi project but you’ve been missing out on Beefy’s yields for fear of what your colleagues might think of you going elsewhere. Well now you can get direct and private access to Beefy through RAILGUN without your colleagues ever knowing. The perfect antidote to embarrassment and low yields! 😘

As the first ever Recipe in the RAILGUN Cookbook, the full functionality of Beefy’s vaults can now be accessed entirely through the protocol, with other decentralized applications on the way soon. At the time of writing, Railway is building out the functionality for its frontend to support direct access to Beefy, with a release expected in the next month. In the meantime, now’s a great opportunity to get yourself a 0zk address and experiment with shielding and transferring your assets via RAILGUN.

Electromagnetic Blast

We hope by now you’re beginning to grasp our excitement at the prospects of ZK technology. Tools like RAILGUN demonstrate the magnetism of ZK, which will help to attract users who find DeFi’s transparency disconcerting. And for builders looking to test the depths of what Web 3.0 can achieve, we’re confident you’ll find ZK composability through RAILGUN a total blast! 💥

So don’t hesitate to give RAILGUN a go and find out for yourself how ZK is changing the face of DeFi. And watch out in June for the launch of Beefy’s vaults on RAILGUN through the Railway Wallet.

RAILGUN Site | Documentation | Governance Platform | Railway Wallet