A conversation with Adrian Brink, Co-founder of Anoma and Namada
Taiga provides both data and functional privacy, a concept we refer to as information flow control. This system allows developers and users to manage which information is shared during various stages of fulfilling intents. Utilising the Halo2 zero-knowledge proof system, Taiga conceals sensitive details like the type of application and the parties involved. This makes transactions from different applications indistinguishable, as they all benefit from the shared shielded transaction pool.
- How does Anoma’s Taiga protect user data while ensuring functional privacy, and are there any trade-offs with performance or scalability?
Taiga provides both data and functional privacy, a concept we refer to as information flow control. This system allows developers and users to manage which information is shared during various stages of fulfilling intents. Utilising the Halo2 zero-knowledge proof system, Taiga conceals sensitive details like the type of application and the parties involved. This makes transactions from different applications indistinguishable, as they all benefit from the shared shielded transaction pool.
Taiga provides scaling benefits comparable to ZK rollups through computational compression, with proving times designed to be efficient even on standard consumer laptops.
- You’ve criticised the rollup ecosystem for lacking innovation and focusing on marginal changes. Could you elaborate on this viewpoint and the current state of rollups?
The primary issue with rollups is their replication of the
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) without offering new functionality for developers to innovate. Rollups are more about execution sharding than providing a true scaling solution. While ZK rollups offer secure execution sharding and have advanced cryptography, they don’t fundamentally change the development landscape. Instead, they create a fragmented environment with numerous rollups and decentralised exchanges (DEXes) that don’t truly enable new possibilities.
Anoma aims to introduce a model for heterogeneous trust that can unify state and liquidity across the rollup ecosystem, improving the development experience.
- What would a self-sovereign, disaster-resistant blockchain infrastructure look like in your view, particularly in extreme scenarios like global conflict?
In a conflict scenario within a multipolar world, a self-sovereign infrastructure should enable communities and nations to maintain their local sovereignty while ensuring global interoperability. Anoma’s architecture supports this through a homogeneous design that allows for heterogeneous trust. This means that applications can move seamlessly between global and local instances, offering resilience to capture.
Single decentralised networks like
Bitcoin or Ethereum, which rely on global consensus, might struggle to survive in such scenarios due to physical connectivity challenges and the risk of social capture. Instead, we need systems that can operate locally while remaining globally connected.
- What are your thoughts on the recent debate over Namada’s no-vesting/no-lockup Token Generation Event (TGE), and how do you plan to address it?
The ideal solution remains uncertain, but it’s clear that lockups are generally detrimental to average crypto users and don’t achieve the intended results. Insiders can still exit the market, albeit less transparently, disadvantaging the public. Lockups distort market signals and favour those with access to non-public markets.
I’m skeptical that hiding market signals leads to better outcomes. High fully diluted valuation (FDV) and low float are toxic for communities, so it’s worth exploring new approaches. The free market launch strategy is an experiment in addressing these issues.