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Redacted

Updated 30 October 20263 min read

Redacted is a private DeFi layer built on Rujira, THORChain's app layer. You deposit into a shared Reserve, and from then on you trade, swap, stake and borrow from a private account that has no visible connection to your public wallet.

On a public chain, anyone with a browser can see what a wallet holds and what it has done. That includes the person who found your ENS name, a stranger you met at a conference and the analytics firms that have tracked wallets like yours for years. Redacted lets you keep using DeFi without handing all of that to whoever looks.

Open to anyone

Redacted is permissionless. There is no sign-up, no KYC and no identity check, so anyone with a wallet can connect, sign one message and start, and withdrawals are always open without anyone's approval. The rules are public and apply in the same way to every user, and independent nodes carry your actions and approve deposits, each one choosing its own checks. Developers can build on Redacted too, because the engine behind it ships as an SDK for wallets, frontends and protocols (see Build on Redacted).

How it feels to use

You sign in once on a device, and from then on Face ID or your fingerprint opens your private account there. After that, zero-knowledge proofs generated in your browser authorize every action and a relayer carries each one on-chain, so your wallet has nothing more to sign. There is no gas to juggle, no new chain and no new seed phrase. MetaMask, Rabby, Keplr, Trust and other wallets work, and the wallet you already have derives your private account and then stays in the background. If you would rather keep an account that depends on no wallet, bunker mode keeps it as 25 words.

There is also no database on our side. Your account lives on-chain as private notes that only your keys can find and spend, and any browser can rebuild it from the chain alone. Our infrastructure makes things more convenient but never holds your funds.

The wait and the nodes

New money waits about two hours before it can be used privately, so a deposit can't be matched to what you do with it a few minutes later. While it waits, the nodes can send back money they decide not to accept, such as coins tied to known hacks or sanctions lists. That money doesn't enter the Reserve and goes back to where it came from.

Every deposit is approved by the node network, and each node chooses what it checks before it approves. Only independent nodes decide whether a deposit is sent back, and it only ever goes back to its sender. The core contributors, the DAO and Bōheki (the DAO's safety multisig) can't turn away or send back anyone's money, and no vote or switch can stop an exit to your home or rescue address, or your own money coming back. Bōheki (once, for about 3 days at most) and node votes can pause all new deposits, but a pause applies to everyone at once and never singles anyone out.

Ozone, the reference screener, is built by Redacted's core contributors, works only from public data and is open source. Each node chooses which Ozone instance it trusts, and the node network can decide to use or add other sources. See Compliance, How the node network works and Who decides what.

Your money stays yours

Redacted's notes and proofs rest on hashes from day one, and so do the signatures of nodes and Spending accounts. Every proof is a STARK with no trusted setup, nodes and Spending accounts sign with SLH-DSA, and in bunker mode your account itself is 25 words you keep, so nothing in it depends on a wallet key.

Your account is also bound to its home, a wallet you control. Nobody can redirect a payment home, and in an incident your money finds its way back there (see Stay safe).

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Why Redacted