Building Cardano’s Zero-Knowledge Future: Symbolic and ENCOINS v2
The Cardano ecosystem has just taken a significant step forward in zero-knowledge (ZK) technology: the completion of ZKFold Symbolic, a Haskell DSL for writing zero-knowledge smart contracts on Cardano. This milestone is crucial not only for advancing privacy and scalability on the network but also for enabling the finalization of ENCOINS v2, which is built entirely using Symbolic.
The Importance of Symbolic
Developing a ZK ecosystem on Cardano from scratch is no easy feat. Unlike other blockchain ecosystems that had a head start with well-established ZK infrastructures, we had to build everything ourselves — with a small but highly dedicated team.
Symbolic, a team effort done by Zk Fold, now serves as a high-level language that abstracts complex cryptographic protocols, allowing developers to create smart contracts in a familiar setting without compromising on efficiency. With Symbolic, developers can compose privacy-preserving smart contracts while maintaining Cardano’s low fees and transaction efficiency. Smart contracts written in Symbolic compile directly into arithmetic circuits, which can be used in various proving systems without relying on virtual machines (VMs). This makes it uniquely efficient and optimized for real-world ZK applications.
ENCOINS v2: A Privacy-First Protocol Powered by Symbolic
With the completion of Symbolic, we can now fully focus on finalizing ENCOINS v2, a next-generation privacy protocol for Cardano. ENCOINS allows users to lock their assets into a smart contract and mint privacy-enhanced, redeemable tokens. These tokens can be transferred off-chain and redeemed later, enabling confidential transactions that don’t expose sensitive details on the blockchain.
For ENCOINS v2, we are implementing:
- A new off-chain infrastructure that constructs transactions using Symbolic.
- An upgraded ENCOINS relay that supports v2 requests via CLI.
- A more efficient and composable framework for handling privacy-preserving transactions.
V2 Development
Initially, the original V2 design had minimal reliance on Symbolic, as the assumption was that most of the code could be implemented independently by the team. However, this approach turned out to require significantly more funding and development time than anticipated.
To ensure the project’s continuation, the approach to V2 has been simplified to rely more on external ZK technologies. Now, the team is waiting for zkFold’s Rollup or Midnight, either of which could help complete V2 in a cost-effective manner.
Roles and Responsibilities
To clarify the scope of responsibilities across different initiatives:
- The ENCOINS team, with the technical support from ModuloP is responsible for maintaining ENCOINS V1.
- Vladimir Sinyakov is responsible for Project Catalyst V2, acting as the main proposer and implementer.
- zkFold and Anastasia Labs are responsible for implementing the P2P On-ramp, where ENCOINS acts as a co-proposer.
- Eryx and Modulo P are leading the implementation of Proof of Innocence on Cardano, with ENCOINS acting as the co-proposer.
- Modulo P is leading the implementation of Groth 16 Ceremony, with Encoins acting as the co-proser
Challenges and Community Support
Building an entire ZK ecosystem from scratch has required an immense amount of time and effort, especially given the limited number of developers working on this frontier. We are aware that progress has been slower than we initially hoped, and we sincerely apologize for the delays. The complexity of developing both backend and frontend infrastructure for a ZK-based protocol while simultaneously improving Symbolic has been a significant undertaking.
Despite these challenges, we remain fully committed to pushing forward and delivering a robust privacy framework for Cardano. We deeply appreciate the support of the community, and we ask for continued patience as we work to bring these powerful privacy tools to life.
Everything We Do Is Open Source
Transparency and decentralization are at the core of our mission. All of our work, including Symbolic and ENCOINS v2, is completely open-source and available for the community to explore, contribute to, and build upon. You can check out our repositories here:
- ENCOINS Core v2: https://github.com/encryptedcoins/encoins-core-v2
- Symbolic Framework: https://github.com/zkFold/symbolic
What’s Next?
Moving forward, our priorities include:
- Finalizing and releasing the ENCOINS v2 off-chain modules and relay updates.
- Expanding the Symbolic library with more developer-friendly tools and documentation.
- Showcasing our progress through educational materials and presentations at conferences.
- Brand new roadmap with clear targets after V2.
Privacy and scalability are crucial for the future of Cardano, and with Symbolic and ENCOINS v2, we are laying the foundation for a powerful zero-knowledge ecosystem on the network. Thank you for your support — we are building this together! #MakeEncoinsGreatAgain #MEGA🚀
For more information on ENCOINS:
