# What is the Reserve in Redacted?

The Reserve is the shared space where every Redacted user’s deposits live together as sealed notes. From the outside all notes look alike, so an action from the Reserve could have come from anyone who has the same coin in it.

## How it works

It works a bit like the vault room of a private bank, where everyone’s boxes are in the same room. Each deposit becomes a note with no address or account entry attached, and only your keys can open yours.

The Reserve applies its rules through zero-knowledge proofs. Your browser proves every action, the contract checks each proof on-chain, and only your proofs can spend your notes.

## Ways in

- A direct deposit from your public wallet. It is the one action your public wallet signs, and it is free.
- Money someone else sent to your Spending account, once it moves into the Reserve.
- Coins from Bitcoin, Ethereum and the other chains THORChain connects to, through a pay-in account that comes with the node network.

## What stays public

The deposit itself is public: anyone can see that a wallet put a coin into the Reserve. What you do afterwards has no visible tie to that wallet, and the more different people hold the same coin, the larger the crowd you blend in with.

The Reserve’s books always balance, and it checks that it can cover what it holds on every outgoing transfer. There is no sweep function and no owner override.

## Status

The Reserve works today, together with sign-in, Spending and withdrawals. With the node network, every deposit will also need a node’s approval, and new money will wait about two hours before it can be used privately.

More: [Reserve and Spending](https://redacted.gg/docs/using-redacted/how-it-works.md)

## Related terms

- [Spending account](https://redacted.gg/glossary/spending-account.md): A Spending account is your personal private account in Redacted: a smart-contract account with no visible tie to your public wallet, from which you trade, swap, stake, lend and borrow on Rujira.
- [Note](https://redacted.gg/glossary/note.md): A note is a sealed entry on-chain that records coins in Redacted’s Reserve and that only your keys can open. From the outside all notes look alike, whoever owns them and whatever they hold.
- [Anonymity set](https://redacted.gg/glossary/anonymity-set.md): An anonymity set is the group of people a given action could have come from. The larger it is, the harder it is to tell who did it.
- [The wait](https://redacted.gg/glossary/deposit-wait.md): With Redacted’s node network, 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.
- [Shielded pool](https://redacted.gg/glossary/shielded-pool.md): A shielded pool holds funds as private notes inside a smart contract. Deposits and withdrawals are public, but what happens inside is proved with zero-knowledge proofs and does not reveal who owns what.
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Page: https://redacted.gg/glossary/reserve/