Privacy on Mersennet
Mersennet is a zero-knowledge Layer 1 where privacy and verifiability are the defaults. Instead of bolting a mixer onto a transparent chain, Mersennet provides account-level privacy across both the EVM and the native central limit order book (CLOB) — Aztec-style — while keeping the chain publicly verifiable through succinct proofs.
What "account-level privacy" means
On a transparent chain, anyone can read your balances, positions, and order flow from the public state. On Mersennet, that information lives in shielded accounts: balances, transfers, positions, and orders are represented as encrypted notes committed to an on-chain Merkle tree. The network can verify that every state transition is valid without learning who owns what.
| Surface | Transparent chain | Mersennet shielded |
|---|---|---|
| Balances | Public per address | Encrypted notes, owner-only |
| Transfers | Sender, recipient, amount public | Nullifier in / commitment out, amounts hidden |
| Leverage positions | Public, openly liquidatable | Private, solvency proven in ZK |
| Order flow | Public mempool + book | Threshold-encrypted intents |
The four pillars
- Shielded accounts — balances, transfers, positions, and order flow are concealed using notes, commitments, and nullifiers.
- Risk checks in zero knowledge — leverage without open liquidations: solvency and margin are proven with ZK proofs instead of public liquidation auctions.
- Selective disclosure — grant a scoped viewing key to an auditor, exchange, or counterparty and reveal exactly what you choose.
- Verifiable state — every block's state transition is proven with SP1 and verified on-chain through a Groth16 bridge, enabling trustless light clients.
How it fits together
flowchart TD
Wallet["Wallet (client-side proving)"] -->|"shielded tx + Noir proof"| Node["Mersennet node"]
Node -->|"updates"| Tree["Note commitment tree + nullifier set"]
Node -->|"block"| SP1["SP1 state-transition proof"]
SP1 -->|"Groth16-wrapped"| Bridge["Ethereum bridge verifier"]
Wallet -->|"scan notes"| Tree
Wallet -->|"grant viewing key"| Auditor["Auditor / exchange"]
Auditor -->|"grant-gated read"| Node
Where to go next
- Building a wallet or app? Start with the Shielded SDK and the Shielded JSON-RPC reference.
- Want the formal protocol? See the Whitepaper.
- Moving funds from transparent to shielded? See Migrating to shielded accounts.
Shielded features are gated by the privacy hard fork. Before activation, mutation methods return error -32605 ("method disabled in current chain mode") and read methods return empty values. See Verifiable state and the activation runbook for details.