solving the web3 privacy problem ...

What is web3?

Most of the innovation in web3 so far happened on the client side. It can be boiled down to Metamask (and more recently Brave) adding new functionality to the web browser.

There is so much noise because everyone wants to claim the term “web3” for themselves. But if we tune out this noise we can see a clear trend: Browser wallets. Metamask has 30 million monthly active users and Brave 50 million. Metamask opened a door to do new things by introducing a new UI paradigm: let any website trigger actions in your wallet, that directly lives in the browser. This makes everything so much more convenient: You can login to websites and send money by just clicking “yes I approve”. No need to copy addresses or fill in forms.

How does it damage your privacy?

But obviously there is a downside to this:

Most cryptocurrencies disclose all transactions unencrypted to the public. For example if you use your Ethereum address to log into a website, this website will know every transaction you ever made.
This is like showing a gym membership card at the entrance of a gym and disclosing all the financial transactions you ever made in the process of that.

The Duality of Web3: Privacy vs. Transparency

How do we fix it?

I work on a Monero browser wallet, because I dont want all my transactions to be visible to everyone, but I still want the convenience of logging into websites and paying for things with one click.

spirobel @spirobel

@AlexAnarcho I am building this. Almost done. Here it displays the transactions list. It also saves the wallet data to the browser storage

The amount and destination you can see here in the transactions list of my wallet is only visible to me. (and now to you because you saw the screenshot of it 😅) All of this information is encrypted by Monero before it is published to the blockchain.

shekar @shekarramaswamy

Exactly! This feels like something browsers could abstract away from users. Would have to be clever on how not to link wallets yet still fund them individually if necessary

spirobel @spirobel

just read this article on privacy and web3 by @shekarramaswamy https://t.co/affhN1ZLhv This is why I work on a browser wallet for Monero. web3 has great UX, but sharing your transaction history every time you login to a website just feels iffy.

Monero transactions also cant be linked together, so this problem is basically solved just by building on Monero. One wallet can have many many throwaway addresses, so there is no need to manage multiple wallets.

What about NFTs, bro?

I recorded a short video to explain the NFT features that I built into the monero browser wallet. Have a look:

On twitter someone wrote this very reasonable response:

(Rekt) chiɱp#5 ⚛️🧪₿ ☢️ @chimpdaiz

@spirobel Is this some sort of nft on monero then? Or that site needs to remember that your monero tx is a member?

We can go about it both ways. We can put the info in tx_extra and make it resalable as well. We could make transaction based smart contracts. But I want to go with the membership usecase first. It is easier to implement and easier to stomach for the Monero community.😅 In this “membership” or “ticket” NFT usecase you have to trust the issuer anyhow, so it is unclear to me where the value is in keeping this info public. Some more thoughts on this:

spirobel @spirobel

In the membership usecase of NFTs you will always have to trust the issuer. There is value to not record transactions publicly in this case. You can still sell only a limited number of cards and have a resell marketplace.

spirobel @spirobel

@chimpdaiz We can go about it both ways. We can also put the info in tx_extra and make it resalable as well. We could make transaction based smart contracts. But I want to go with the membership usecase first. It is easier to implement and easier to stomach for the Monero community. 😅

spirobel @spirobel

people will find out quickly if the issuer is inflating the supply more than he promised when suddenly lots of people show up in the private chat group that is guarded by the membership NFT.

It seems like others look at this in a similar way (we sent the reply at the same time 😅) :

Gordon G. Bednar @GGB1998_NFT

@spirobel That sounds like a good assumption. If the issuer is inflating the supply more than he promised, people will find out quickly. If he is not, people may not find out for a while.

spirobel @spirobel

@GGB1998_NFT wow same thought haha. We can rug pull each other in private or in public. A rug pull is a rug pull I guess 😅😆

A rug pull is a rug pull I guess …