Greetings community,

We stand here at both a finish and starting line. Two years ago, a vision was born that envision a stablecoin with powerful attributes that would change commerce and Web3 as we know it.

Now, we are on the verge of launching that vision.

A stablecoin that is the following:

• Stable

• Fast

• Private

• Open Source

• Decentralized

• Overcollateralized

• Protection against inflation & volatility

• Permisionless

• Interoperable

• Globally accessible

• Globally transactable

• Censorship resistant

• Auditable

Were a stablecoin to be launched with these features, this would be a watershed moment for cryptocurrency.

A stablecoin that lived up to the Web3 ethos instead of a recreation of the existing centralized financial landscape.

A stablecoin that inspired a global community in a similar way that Bitcoin has.  

A stablecoin that was elegant.  

Silk.  

Silk - Web3 Commerce Reimagined  

The story of Silk is built on real world impact. A drive to create a readily accessible decentralized currency that serves as an interoperability hub between global currencies and commodities. Something that your friends, businesses, and family could hold and use while being protected from the volatility of the global economy.

*32 years of backtesting

Silk does this by tracking a basket of global currencies and commodities, ensuring that holders of Silk are able to trade and redeem their Silk for a stable amount of value. The value of every Silk is maintained via a system of overcollateralization, giving users the peace of mind that their stablecoin is always backed by more assets than the amount of Silk in circulation.

Silk is designed as a decentralized aggregate - a helpful analogy is that Silk is an ETF-like basket of commodities (Bitcoin, Gold) and healthy currencies (USD,  JPY, EUR, CAD). The basket being tracked is as follows:

• Gold, Bitcoin (25%)

• USD, JPY, EUR, CAD (75%)

As additional global assets become represented on blockchains, Silk will expand what the basket is tracking overtime via decentralized governance. Governance over Silk can have the following impact:

• Modification of weights

• Adding asset

• Remove asset

With the ability to dynamically change overtime, Silk is well positioned to evolve no matter how the global economy evolves and changes overtime - giving Silk an immense amount of utility that will help it become a staple of Web3 alongside Bitcoin.

Silk - Privacy

In order for Web3 commerce to scale into our daily lives, there has to be privacy for transactions. Businesses cannot put their transactions on a blockchain due to their transparent nature, competitors or malicious actors can snoop on the following types of metadata:

• Sender

• Receiver

• Amounts

• Balances

• Transaction type

• Timestamps

This is a direct threat to the security of a user and business. You don't go to the grocery store thinking that anyone in the line can see how much money you have in your back account! And as a business, you do not want competitors gathering data on your business strategies, contracts, customers, and salaries. .

Silk protects the following:

• Receiver

• Amounts

• Balances

• Transaction type

Silk's privacy embodies a simple ethos.

Privacy is the key to unlocking the full value of a decentralized future.

Silk - Interoperability

In order for Silk to be globally accessible it must be readily available through all of the existing fiat and Web3 rails that users are becoming increasingly comfortable with using. Silk, due to being embedded into Shade Protocol and Secret Network, is currently bridgeable via the following protocols:

• IBC

• Axelar

Though the power of Axelar Silk also has access to key blockchains such as Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, etc.  

Within the roadmap and vision casting, Silk is focused on integrating into existing fiat payment rails to make the process of onboarding users and businesses into Silk as simple as a single click.

In addition to compatibility and transportation to and from blockchains, Silk will also be focused on expanding the number of wallets that support Silk. The wallets that currently support SILK are as follows:

• Keplr

• Leap

• Starshell

• Fina

• Citadel.One

Silk - Performance, Speed, Cost

Silk strives for accessible, fast, and cheap transactions for all. With being built on Secret Network as the origination chain, Silk has the following notable features:

• <$0.01 transaction costs

• ~6 second transactions

• ~26 transactions per block

As more Silk adoption occurs, Shade Protocol would launch a side-chain solely devoted to scaling Silk transactions. Silk will always strive to have efficient and cheap transactions for users around the world.

Silk - Auditable Privacy

Silk is built on Secret Network, the first blockchain with customizable privacy. Users get to choose what they share, with whom, and how.

This protects users and empowers developers to build a better Web3.Viewing keys are used to validate the identity of someone who queries a specific account. Viewing key empower users to safely decrypt their own transactions and data. They can be generated to allow third parties, including other contracts, to view an individual’s balance.

Using the power of Secret Network and viewing keys, Silk as a stablecoin is well positioned to bring privacy to everyday commerce and transactions. Privacy working in tandem with Silk is key to unlocking the full value of a decentralized future.

In order for a currency to gain global transaction, it has to have a path for auditability and compliance while still respecting users' right to privacy and sovereignty.

Conclusion

Shade Protocol is an ambitious array of application-layer products focused on a simple end user experience that involves the incorporation of privacy by default. These interconnected privacy-preserving DeFi products built on Secret Network will change DeFi as we know it — empowering the next generation of value creation and exchange. Shade Protocol is launching Silk: a privacy-preserving collateralized, stablecoin built on Secret Network.

Without privacy, DeFi is incomplete. Traditional financial markets offer a degree of privacy for users, and as a result offer up greater protections in some capacity than existing DeFi markets. Shade Protocol will be the world’s first truly cohesive decentralized and privacy-preserving financial applications — ushering in a golden era for Web3. Shade Protocol will always push for privacy by default, privacy as an expectation, and privacy as the key to unlocking the full value of a decentralized future.

But we can’t do this without community. We need you to join our community and help make Silk and Shade Protocol a reality.

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Information provided in this post is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute formal investment advice. Please read the full disclaimer at shadeprotocol.io/disclaimer before relying on any information herein.