V1 hides your balance and your notes. V2 hides you.
STSH V1 is live on mainnet. Below: what it does today, what it does not do yet and why, and what V2 adds, in order. The longer arc follows in six phases: launch the asset, grow the private economy, support other assets, put privacy inside wallets, hand the protocol to the community, then bring the technology to treasuries.
Now · V1, live on mainnet
Private balances
STSH you shield is held in a shared pool. Nobody can see how much you hold inside it.
Private note selection
When you spend, nobody can tell which of the pool's notes paid. Deposits come in fixed sizes (1k, 10k, 100k, 1M and 10M STSH), so every note looks alike.
Two ways to spend
Re-shield, where your note becomes a fresh note and nothing leaves the pool, or public payout, where part of a note goes to any public account and the recipient and amount are visible.
Device-bound keys
Your notes are encrypted to devices you enrol with your Internet Identity. An optional passphrase and new-device approval add a second lock.
Proof of reserves
A separate monitor checks the pool's public backing and publishes a certified attestation at reserves.stsh.fi.
Multi-sig upgrades
Canister changes go through a 2-of-3 governance multi-sig. Fee changes need a vote and are capped per change.
Known limitations, and why we shipped this way
- Your account signs every spend. The spender is visible on-chain, and with a single deposit a payout can be linked to it. We chose this for launch because signing was the simplest safe defence against spam floods that would drain the proof verifier. It costs sender privacy. V2 removes it.
- No private-to-private sends yet. Value leaves the pool only by public payout.
- No withdraw yet. Unshielding to yourself is not built. It comes with V2.
- A young crowd. Privacy grows with the number of notes in the pool, and the pool started at zero on launch day.
- A single-contributor trusted setup. The proving key was generated by one operator plus a public randomness beacon. A multi-party ceremony is planned.
- Controller cutover in progress. Governance runs on the multi-sig today. Removing the founder's deploy key completes in the next release.
- No external audit yet. A continuous adversarial AI red-team reviews the deployed code and every change. An external audit is planned.
V2 · after launch, in order
Hidden spender
Spends can be submitted by anyone: a throwaway identity, a relayer or the recipient. The pool stops asking who is spending. No change to the circuit and no migration: your existing notes keep working.
Spam control without identity
Prepaid, unlinkable verify tickets and a pool-wide budget replace per-account limits.
Private-to-private sends
Send shielded STSH straight to another user's private balance. Value stays inside the pool, and the crowd grows.
Viewing keys and audit tools
Give an auditor or accountant read-only access to your activity without the ability to spend. Prove after the fact that a payment came from you, when you choose to.
Withdraw with a hidden sender
Unshield without your account showing as the sender, including payouts to fresh addresses.
Timing protection
Spends are finalised in batches, so order and timing are blurred.
Live anonymity-set stats
The reserves page shows the crowd per note size, so you can see how many notes you hide among.
ckBTC shielded pool
The same privacy layer for Bitcoin on the Internet Computer, launched directly on the V2 model with a multi-contributor ceremony. Native zkBTC, our own bridge, follows only if external audit strength supports it.
Multi-party ceremony for STSH
Optional, held in the same sitting as the ckBTC ceremony.
External audit, ledger history and governance delay
An external audit; ledger transaction history (ICRC-3) for explorers and DEX listings; a timelock and public proposal feed for governance.
The six phases
Launch
Shielded STSH, a working privacy system, public documentation, a small initial float and community review.
Start with STSH. Prove the privacy layer.
Grow
Liquidity and participation incentives. A larger anonymity set. Real protocol activity.
Grow the private economy around the protocol.
Expand
Isolated privacy pools for other ICRC and Chain Fusion assets. STSH is the first supported asset, not the last.
The protocol outgrows the token.
Integrate
A public wallet and application SDK. Target path: wallet → shield → private transaction → wallet.
Privacy becomes a feature of the ecosystem, not a destination.
Decentralise
SNS transition after proven operation, users, liquidity, multiple assets and mature security. Until the handoff completes, operational controls remain with the initial team, and this page says so.
Built independently. Proven publicly. Governed by the community.
Institutionalise
Auditable private Bitcoin and treasury infrastructure: viewing permissions, audit exports, proof of backing, policy controls and separate enterprise pools.
Confidential settlement with public accountability: as a product line, later.
Long-term objective
An auditable privacy layer for public digital assets: one where privacy is what the cryptography gives you, and accountability is what the ledger keeps.