The co-founder of DarkFi, Rachel Rose O’Leary, speaking at the Proof of Work summit 2023 talked about the future of privacy and anonymity in the digital age.
Her talk also included insights into the evolving landscape of DarkFi, which aims to provide a secure environment for truly anonymous applications.
She challenged the conventional narratives surrounding privacy and its relationship with technology.
She called for the need to move away from a reactive approach to privacy, commonly associated with the Cypherpunk movement, and towards a more affirmative stance.
Cypherpunk, Lunarpunk, and Solarpunk
The Cypherpunk movement, which emerged in the early days of the internet, was dedicated to building anonymous systems to defend privacy.
However, Rachel pointed out that this defensive stance has often led to a conflation of privacy with criminality by surveillance states.
Lunar Punk proposes a shift towards asserting freedom and utopian anonymity rather than mere defense.
SolarPunk, on the other hand, offers a more optimistic view of the future but tends to promote transparency as a solution.
Rachel noted that an overemphasis on transparency can also lead to unintended consequences, such as the loss of privacy.
The Lunar Punk movement introduces the concept of “utopian non-states,” envisioning new societies outside the traditional framework of state-based civilization.
This represents a bold departure from conventional thinking about governance and individual rights.
Why DarkFi
Speaking further, Rachel provided insights into DarkFi, a blockchain-based network that combines various techniques, including zero-knowledge proofs, multi-party computation, and fully homomorphic encryption.
DarkFi aims to provide a platform for developers to create truly anonymous applications, ensuring privacy and security for users.
She said that the DarkFi network is currently on testnet, and its architecture supports anonymous staking, on-chain programmable encrypted treasures, multi-asset swaps, and encrypted peer-to-peer communication.
The speaker added that DarkFi’s smart contract architecture is extensible, allowing developers to create feature-rich applications while preserving anonymity.
The network employs a unique approach to block generation, called Ouroboros Cryptonous, where block leaders remain anonymous, mitigating DDoS risks.
Rachel also stressed the importance of anonymous communication, as many projects resort to using non-secure platforms like Discord.
DarkFi roadmap
In the next phase, the co-founder said that DarkFi plans to transition to a Proof of Work phase using the RandomX CPU mining algorithm as a distribution method.
The project is currently focusing on finalizing its testnet and auditing the codebase.
DarkFi aims to launch its mainnet early next year, marking a significant step in its quest for anonymous applications and financial transactions.
