Etonec, a leader in developing solutions at the intersection of payments, blockchain and digital assets, in partnership with Mina Foundation, a public benefit corporation serving the Mina Protocol, today announced the completion of a functional prototype to help address existing gaps within the privacy and Web3 compliance space.
The etonec team plans to build a state-of-the-art zero-knowledge proof solution (zkp-ID) with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) functionality within the Lumina DEX, an exchange built on Mina Protocol, to help satisfy regulatory needs without sacrificing user privacy or data.
This news comes as a follow-on to the Feasibility Study Mina and etonec published with The Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust of the University of Luxembourg and Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe entitled “How to design a compliant, privacy-preserving fiat stablecoin via zero knowledge proofs” at the end of last year.
“Remaining compliant with KYC and AML rules while providing decentralized, private and trustless solutions for dApps is critical to the long-term sustainability of Web3,” said Jonathan Knoll, Co-Founder and Head of Strategy at etonec. “The prototype focused on leveraging zkApps to enable private and compliant transactions. Our team is hard at work in concert with Mina Foundation to integrate those learnings into the Lumina DEX. This work will further demonstrate DEXs’ and other dApps’ commitment to traditional KYC and AML guidelines while also adhering to the data privacy needs of Web3 users.”
Mina Foundation awarded a grant to etonec to help build the zkp-ID solution. The etonec team has already completed the initial stages of the solution development, which is expected to go live by the end of this year. The solution will be universally available for other Web3 DeFi applications and businesses at launch. It is envisioned that zkp-ID will help many Web3 use cases that will need to combine privacy that end users and businesses demand with oversight and compliance that regulators require.
“Mina Foundation’s focus has been and always will be to enable developers to build zkApps. The zkp-ID solution will ensure builders can do so in a way that helps satisfy concerns of KYC and AML regulators around the globe without requiring users to share sensitive personal identifying information. This new prototype shows how dApps can effectively close the gap in Web3 compliance and privacy,” said Kurt Hemecker, Chief Operating Officer at Mina Foundation.
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About Mina Protocol
Mina Protocol is being incubated by O(1) Labs, the leader in zk-SNARKs and verifiable computation. Mina Protocol, the world’s lightest blockchain, provides a foundation for the decentralized digital economy (Web 3.0), by affording all participants fully P2P, permissionless access to the chain, from any device. By utilizing recursive zk-SNARKs, the Mina blockchain always stays the same size — about 20 kilobytes (the size of a few tweets). Recursive zk-SNARKs allow nodes to rapidly share and update proof of the correct blockchain state across the network. This breakthrough application of zk-SNARKs solves the issues of scalability and high barrier to entry for nodes that have plagued legacy blockchains to-date. By making it easier for nodes to participate, Mina improves decentralization and therefore security of the network. The Mina blockchain can be easily accessed from any device, including phones and browsers, and can be seamlessly integrated into new decentralized applications (dapps).
