Welcome to the alpha please newsletter.
One of the first very clear value propositions of crypto revolved around privacy.
It’s one of those crypto verticals I could chat about with a friend down at the pub, and they’d instantly be somewhat interested, as they can see governments are turning very authoritarian all around the world.
Although most people wouldn’t actually do anything about it, it still shows that it’s an obvious and powerful crypto primitive with massive adoption potential.
So this week, I’ve decided to prepare a special Alpha Apps edition featuring 3 crypto protocols built around privacy.
Let’s get into it.
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Here are the tracks:
• RWA/ RealFi
• DeFi & Composability
• GameFi & Social
• AI & Oracles
• ZK & Privacy
• Infrastructure & Tooling
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1. ZCash
One of the early critiques of Bitcoin’s design was that its ledger, while anonymous, was fully public, and hence couldn’t truly serve as a real cypherpunk unstoppable store of value solution capable of protecting the collective from AI and surveillance being abused at scale.
ZCash is an OG protocol from 2016 that built on this exact idea: create a private store-of-value solution. It’s a PoW blockchain with ZEC as its native asset, inheriting the same supply cap (21M) and inflation schedule as Bitcoin, but with a privacy options embedded at the protocol level through zero-knowledge encryption.
While BTC was ultimately the one that caught the most traction, ZCash quietly persisted on the side over the years. And just recently, it’s been regaining a lot of traction and momentum.
To be honest, while part of this might just be a bit of short-term hype, there’s also something deeper behind it. I have no idea how this will play out, but here’s an initial idea:
Buy the amount of ZEC you wish you had bought and held in BTC
Shield it, and put it somewhere safe and protected.
Be comfortable losing it, but treat it as a hedge against a potential Orwellian reality.
Last but not least, here’s a fantastic read on the case for a small allocation to ZEC:
I recommend trying the Zashi wallet for storing and shielding your ZEC. It’s a pretty slick mobile wallet, which is also recommended on ZCash’s official website.
2. Umbra
Umbra is another privacy-focused crypto project that recently gained significant traction after its historic ICO on MetaDAO.
The project raised $3M, but what was really huge is that it got over $154M in total capital commitments. While a lot of that can be attributed to big LPs being aware of the cap and pouring in more capital to get a bigger alloc knowing they would be refunded, I still think it’s an impressive stats and shows the current hype around privacy.
Umbra’s goal is to serve as the privacy layer for Solana by providing the necessary infrastructure to execute confidential transactions, allowing users and applications to protect their data on-chain.
This means that with Umbra, anyone on Solana is able to:
Execute private payments and transfers
Perform confidential DeFi transactions (e.g., shield your trading strategies)
Manage your treasury privately as a business (e.g., run onchain operations confidentially, such as handling payroll or sensitive business expenses)
Umbra’s roadmap is also packed for this year. I am excited for it.
If you are a big Solana user and are interested in privacy, Umbra is a no-brainer to follow and try out. The UMBRA token has been live for a few weeks, so might be worth keeping on your watchlist.
*No investment advice and please DYOR.
3. Railgun
To finish today’s piece, I want to present a third privacy protocol that I like.
Railgun defines itself as Ethereum’s universal privacy solution. It enables EVM users to shield and anonymize transactions of both ERC-20 tokens and NFTs. In short, you can swap and use DeFi privately without losing out on liquidity.
To be clear, Railgun is not a blockchain but rather an onchain smart contract code that acts as a backend privacy infrastructure, which can be integrated into any wallet and where Railgun users have access to a special 0zk address that remains confidential. This means the user experience is similar to using a regular public wallet to interact with Ethereum or EVM chains, just with the added ability to transact privately.
The protocol has gained significant traction since launch, with over $4B in total shielded volume to date. This clearly shows there’s a real market need for privacy infrastructure like Railgun. Moreover, Vitalik himself has been a strong advocate of the protocol, which is both reassuring and a strong signal that some of the brightest minds in the space deeply care about the topic of privacy.
Another important point is that Railgun has a built-in anti–money laundering mechanism, which helps ensure the protocol isn’t used for illicit activity. This is a key feature that makes it even more legit.
As always, if you are interested, I recommend you check out their app.
And that’s your alpha.
Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Crypto currencies are very risky assets and you can lose all of your money. Do your own research.