Today we have the pleasure of having Skyfoxx & JAM from the Sacred Finance team with us. Thanks a lot for your time guys! With them, we talk about DeFi and Privacy. Sacred believes in challenging Surveillance Capitalism, and privacy is the great equalizer to do that.
While mixers have been around for a while, one problem they face is that they are not capital efficient. What this means is that while your tokens are mixing and gaining privacy in the average mixer, they are also sitting idle. Sacred is different in that it invests them into DeFi protocols while they are gaining anonymity so that your tokens gain interest while they mix – hence the name Sacred “Finance”. On top of that Sacred Finance also rewards users with its token for anonymity mining. This is where users can earn SACRED for being part of the anonymity set in the smart contract. Each new user in the contract increases the privacy of all other users. In short, although private transactions are at the base level a default on the Sacred product, people use Sacred to effect private yield generation.
Sacred is building a DeFi Protocol that strengthens the entire DeFi experience in the security of privacy, by simultaneously integrating other DeFi Protocols under a unified privacy portal (platform) and allowing other projects to use our privacy tools.
>> For more Info about how Sacred Finance works, have a look at their detailed documentation.
[SurferInvestor] JAM&Skyfoxx, Could you please introduce your role within Sacred? What is your background?
[JAM] My role as a contributor for Sacred is to research and build out the Sacred ecosystem. More specifically, I am helping out with the privacy education pieces, designing the tokenomics, and researching the DAO structure for the upcoming Sacred DAO.
My experiences as a researcher for DeFi protocols and a degen set the stepping stone for me to engage and help grow the Sacred ecosystem. Regardless of who the founders are, we want to create an ecosystem where anyone can come and help build and be an owner of Sacred. Especially in the context of privacy, we want everyone to be part of the conversation and journey to dictate how the privacy space grows in web3.
[Skyfoxx] I work in the Policy and Strategy stream. There are a lot of smart people putting their skills into the project. Since Sacred is a DAO, it also gets users to contribute to different streams of the DAO:
- Policy & Strategy
- Community initiatives
- Marketing & Branding
- Development
My personal background is fairly diverse. BioEngineering, Genetics, Data Analytics, and for the last couple of years, blockchain. My personal passion is for creating as many use-cases as possible for SACRED and working on its tokenomics.
[SurferInvestor] How many people are in the team?
[Skyfoxx] There are 6 core members that have been involved in getting the product out. We have recently onboarded a Community Manager to start with us soon, and are onboarding a Marketing Manager to let the world know about Sacred.
[SurferInvestor] How did you come up with the idea of Sacred?
[JAM] Our project started in mid-2021. The idea was born when we were looking at the capital inefficiency of mixers. Mixers need users to stay in the mixer for 3~5 days (or more) to maximize their privacy, we thought this would be an amazing chance to utilize the opportunity to earn yield. Not only that, through our stakes-of-shared-seconds method, we allow users to earn yield privately!
This vision is recognized by multiple big projects, Conflux Network, Polygon (Top 10 grant awardee), and Aave Grants DAO (Top 10 grant awardee). We also closed 2 private rounds including prominent investors such as Spartan group, Sky Vision Capital, and Shima Capital.
[SurferInvestor] Could you please explain the connection between Conflux and Sacred?
[JAM] Conflux network was the first chain we were attempting to launch our project on but we pivoted last November because we want to seize the opportunity to make Sacred sustainable in the long run, to tap into the Polygon / Ethereum ecosystem and its liquidity. We are still grateful to Conflux Chain for believing in our product!
[SurferInvestor] What motivated your decision to launch on Polygon after Ethereum? What is your opinion about L2? Any plans to launch on an L2?
[Skyfoxx] Ultimately it’s the fees. Ethereum is a great blockchain but can sometimes get a little expensive depending on the use case. Polygon was the ideal choice for us considering speed, cost and scalability. However, Polygon is only one of many chains we will launch on. We are definitely looking at L2’s on Ethereum and other chains for our roadmap for Sacred Finance.
[SurferInvestor] Could you please give a rough idea about the yield that people can expect when they will deposit on Sacred?
[Skyfoxx] This will ultimately be voted on by the DAO. However, the yield from Sacred comes from the DeFi protocol it invests in (initially Aave) and also the Incognito Mining from Sacred. We want to make sure the yield is good enough to incentivize large-scale use of Sacred, but at the same time, we have to be mindful to keep inflation to a minimum. More info about the SACRED token announcement here.
[SurferInvestor] In an ideal world, how would Sacred look in 5-10 years?
[Skyfoxx] Five years is a long time in the blockchain space. However, we would like to see Sacred Finance be extremely well integrated into the DeFi space. It should be so integrated that it is the default solution for anything in DeFi. This should also be in multiple blockchains. Think how SSL (Secure Socket Layer) used to be a ‘preference’ years but is pretty much de facto when you access web 2. This is what we would like to see Sacred Finance become. Sacred is building a DeFi Protocol that strengthens the entire DeFi experience in the security of privacy, by simultaneously integrating other DeFi Protocols under a unified privacy portal (platform) and allowing other projects to use our privacy tools.
[SurferInvestor] What are you looking for to foster the growth of Sacred? Recruiting/Funding/Exposure?
[Skyfoxx] We’ve been pretty busy building out Sacred Finance in the background and we’re finally ready to let the world know what we’re about. At this point, we are looking to increase the growth of our community for the DAO and also gain “much much” more exposure. Keep your eyes open for new developments in this space!
[SurferInvestor] For people who wanna jump in, how to get involved?
[Skyfoxx] We definitely want the community to take part in making Sacred Finance even bigger and better! It doesn’t matter what your skills are, you can definitely help out at Sacred. We need writers, people interested in community engagement/ marketing, translators, researchers, and people passionate about web3 and privacy. To contribute, simply reach out to one of our admins or mods.
Thanks to JAM & Skyfoxx, we understood today much more about how the Sacred Finance protocol works. Do you want to learn more about Sacred Finance? Have a look at their socials:
One last thing – How Sacred keeps your transaction private?
Sacred allows you to deposit coins into a mixer with one address and redeem them with another, severing the on-chain link and hiding the blockchain record from observers. This is made feasible by zero-knowledge proofs.
Within Sacred, there is a Sacred Box for each deposit type (i.e., 1 WETH, 10 WETH, etc.) that handles a set (collection) of all active user deposits of that denomination, from oldest to newest. This collection of layered deposits is known as an Anonymity Set. To achieve maximum secrecy, wait at least 5-10 layers of deposits on top of your own before making a withdrawal.
Incognito Mining is a significant incentive mechanism that promotes greater anonymity sets. This incentive raises the level of anonymity in each Sacred Box by incentivizing users to invest their money in Sacred. Remember that the greater the number of deposits, the greater the depth within the Anonymity Set and the greater the strength of the Privacy Indicator (level).
Disclaimer: I have been a Sacred contributor since very early on and I personally love the idea and the team behind the project. Of course, none of the above is financial advice. DYOR.
>> Is Bitcoin really anonymous?
>> How to buy Bitcoin anonymously?
