Secret’s tech is the ultimate blank canvas for innovative applications. You might already know of Secret as the Web3 privacy hub. And with programmable privacy enabled by default, Secret is enhancing existing concepts created on blockchain (DeFi, NFT, Gaming). But more crucial than that, Secret offers developers an edge to innovate on real world use cases.
We’ll cover some examples of use cases through this article.
The blockchain space has seen a lot of innovation since DeFi summer in 2020. However, public blockchain are still struggling with MEV (Miner Extractable Value) and de facto anyone swapping through AMMs are subject to front-running or sandwich attack. More than $611million were collected in MEV since January 2020 (https://explore.flashbots.net/).
These problems are solved with Secret by having an encrypted state and a validators set which know nothing about the transactions they are processing.
You will be able to use the standard DeFi primitives such as lending, borrowing and providing liquidity in pools without revealing your liquidation targets, your position size or your strategies as all your interactions are private.
Let’s now talk about what could be built on Secret (or what’s being built).
We could have a private credit scoring enabling you to borrow more with less collateral or even without.
Borrowing stablecoins against your assets and providing liquidity on an AMM on Secret or on Cosmos chain through IBC smart contract call, all of that privately, is opening the field of new revenue opportunities.
Secret could also enable DAOs treasury assets and farming positions to only be visible by the DAO community.
Shade Protocol is launching an algorithmic stablecoin (SILK) pegged to a basket of currencies and commodities for maximum volatility shock absorption. Learn more at: What Is Shade Protocol?
Large investors are using dark pools in traditional finance for huge transactions. They are then subject to front-running from High-Frequency Trading firms. Private dark pools on Secret could lead to a massive amount of liquidity exchanged and finally provide foundations for the institutions and big players to enter the DeFi space with Secret.
Source: Pros and Cons of Dark Pools of Liquidity
More about DeFi dApp on Secret? SecretSwap - Sienna Network - Button Group - Hydro Finance - Shade Protocol
Art and Digital Media are booming in the blockchain space thanks to the NFT primitive. Secret is again providing exciting and critical features to NFT with privacy. We’ll not go through the details here but to learn more about all the aspects of Private NFT check out:
Learn more in this article - The Infinite Horizon of Secret NFTs
NFT 3D galleries are starting to pop-up amongst the ecosystem. We could have a private version where the artist may show only some pieces to the public and have a VIP section only accessible if you own a NFT from that artist or with the password written in the private metadata of your NFT.
This protects the artist’s content and allows them to generate fair revenue streams by building a fan base. The artist could also release exclusive private content which is only to be seen by his NFT collections owners.
(Another great feature is private bid auctions.)
Fractionalized Secret NFTs (currently in development) allow you to own a share of an expensive NFT privately and in the meantime provide NFTs a more liquid market and better price discovery.
What about owning a share of a luxury real estate which had been fractionalized and owning that token could generate yield from vacation rent? Or do you prefer owning a share of a private island?
More about NFTs on Secret - Marketplace (Stashh) - Fractionalized NFTs
One of the issues with blockchain gaming is having your NFT and assets public, giving your opponents an edge against you. Leveraging private NFT metadata, Secret will disrupt the entire industry and give all players the same chance to be the best.
Secret gaming is also taking advantage of its private on-chain randomness number generation with Secret RNG which provides fair and private outcomes for gaming.
Secret Feature: Secret Oracles | Used in Gaming, NFTs & More!
Here is some of the function made possible in gaming through Secret’s technology:
- Fully or partially hide your card deck in a PvP card game
- Private equipment and skills set for PvP session in your favorite action RPG
- Unlock special skills based on your NFT private metadata (only known by you)
- Fair randomness for online Casino or Poker (with Secret RNG)
- Private betting markets
If you want to to go deeper on Secret gaming differentiators, read this article:
Secret’s tech offers critical utility to anyone building or playing Blockchain games
Now, let’s take a look at what Secret is bringing for your day to day applications.
Privacy is a human right and Secret is setting the landscape to take back the full control and ownership of our data. Privacy is fundamentally for a better Web3.
Why are you not receiving any incentives when your data is monetized and exchanged on marketplaces you’re not aware of?
Jackal is building a decentralized Web3 hot/cold cloud storage system that follows the Amazon S3 standard but with higher digital privacy and cyber security standards by bridging Secret and Filecoin. Jackal is based on a P2P node network which are all a gateway to FileCoin and an IPFS node (acting as a cache layer), ensuring a smooth and private user experience.
Only the owner of the private key can access the content of his storage and Secret smart contract are used to encrypt/decrypt the content uploaded/downloaded by the owner.
For example, you could have a private vault for digital evidence in a justice case which could be only opened during hearings with the private key avoiding any prior tempering.
Web3 developers could use Jackal to build:
- Password Managing Service
- Website Hosting
- NFT Storage Solution
- Google Docs and Dropbox similar applications
By controlling the viewability and ownership of your data, you should be able to decide to sell, if you choose to, your data in marketplaces.
DataVault is being developed on Secret, introducing a decentralized privacy-preserving content management and data exchange. You will be able to download an encrypted dataset containing any type of content (video, music, software, picture, data proofs, …) and by purchasing the viewing key you will unlock its full content. Marketplaces plugged to DataVault would generate revenue from sales for the governance stakers. They could vote to approve or delist dataset providers and provide dataset scoring. This economic model benefits the creators and users and not one centralized company.
And what about private Decentralized Identity? You should be able to connect to all your dApps with your unique DID and share only data that is needed by the dApp.
StarShell is a privacy-preserving, free, and open-source Web3 wallet built for the Secret Network and Cosmos Ecosystem. It protects your identity by limiting the types of information dApps can collect from your account.
With Secret as a base layer, you can see the impressive diversity of use cases that become possible.
Learn more about Jackal, DataVault and StarShell
The core issue with public blockchain, when it comes to cryptocurrency payment is the lack of transactional privacy. This creates a huge barrier for adoption. You should be able to spend your cryptocurrencies and stablecoins without revealing your wallets balances and worst of all, your entire transaction history.
Does your favorite coffee shop have access to your bank account balance when you’re swiping your credit card? We should certainly expect that level of privacy as the minimum standard in this new financial wave of cryptocurrency.
A straightforward use case would be a payment platform leveraging Secret privacy to pay with cryptocurrency and preserving data, account balance for both the consumer and the business owner without trusting a centralized third party. This is exactly what Silk Pay from Shade Protocol is aiming to provide. It’s introducing a new sender/receiver confirmation architecture using an escrow contract in the middle ensuring that the transfer is going to the intended address.
Read more about it here: GitHub — Silk Pay
Cross border wire transfers are expensive, slow and require paperwork. Alternatives by trusting a 3rd Party exists but with a huge fee involved.
Why not use Secret for instant, private and cheap transactions with no capped amount?
On the business to business side, Secret has already developed an invoicing application for requesting and sending money to business counterparties. This is only scratching the surface of what is possible to develop thanks to Secret.
Secret Feature: Secret Invoice Payments
The rise of the Internet has provided a seamless communication experience for billions of users. You’re maybe one of them, communicating on a daily basis with your family, friends, co-workers and communities.
But with public by default blockchain, we would enable the same Web2 companies to again exploit the users data by simply looking at the blockchain.
That’s why we need communication tools, like email, group chats, video calls, social media and collaborative software with data protection and encryption at its core. We must take back control over our data when using these communication tools.
Alter is paving the way on Secret and has released their private & secure messaging application (email, messaging and group chat). They plan to release an email bridge, voice calls, video conferencing and calendar applications in the future with of course privacy at its core.
Their goal is to become the most decentralized, flexible and scalable communications platform for Web 3.0.
You could also imagine any today social media platform or dating apps using Secret and its built-in privacy to protect its users and give them back control of their data and privacy.
This could also apply to decentralized music and video streaming. It’s better to be the only one knowing that you spent hours on cat videos and not your video streaming provider, no?
If you want to learn more about Alter - Website - Blog
Your privacy was an afterthought in Web2 and we are repeating the same mistake in the early days of Web3. We have seen massive privacy and data breaches in the last few years (Cambridge Analytica to name one).
Without privacy, Web3 will be a dangerous version of Web2 where your data and consumer behavior are just public and sitting here for big corporations to exploit them, again…
Secret is providing the solution to take back control, preserve your right to manage your privacy, decide what data and with who you want to share it and in the long run for cryptocurrency to go mainstream.
Secret is not only bringing privacy to existing blockchain application but also providing the base layer for a better Web3. This is where we are seeing a lot of real use case applications putting back the user at the center of it all, preserving your right to privacy.
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