Core to the ethos of man is the right to privacy.

In the world of digitalization, privacy has increasingly been lost as walled platforms require users to accept a long list of terms and conditions to enter. Entrance to these platforms is typically free from a monetary perspective; however, users, in return, grant these corporations access to their digital activity.

The idea of privacy is borderline lost in today’s digital world.

The era of people who grew up using cash in a pre-digital world held some semblance of privacy to purchase because cash exchanges were peer-to-peer with no intermediary required to monitor and distribute funds.

Bitcoin brings back the cash ideology as it relates to the removal of intermediaries, and while Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous in nature, we believe software that caters to privacy is a return to normalcy that should be championed.

Catering to the pressures of digitization and centralization creates a society where interactions are easily monitored, filtered, and tracked. These pressures set up a future where citizens have transactions blocked, traced, or limited in the event they attempt to purchase something deemed illicit or restricted.

These oversights undermine the backbone of the free market and remove the privatization of funds—a foundational right of Western Civilization and Liberty.

This is wrong.

Software has many powers to bring society into a further connected and modernized world, and these powers should come with the addition of personal freedom and privacy, not at the expense.

The future of platforms and big tech should be open-source and privacy-focused, not closed and data-harvesting.

Software should work as intended, all the while using only the minimal required information necessary to perform the desired function.

This type of construction is called “Zero-knowledge” (ZK) and lets one party (the prover) show another party (the verifier) that a statement is true without revealing any other personally identifiable information.

In the realm of digital finance, zero-knowledge design allows for digital payments to act in the same way as if you exchanged physical cash for a good or service. Under a ZK system, designated parties learn nothing about someone’s identity.

The way it should be.

ZK Proofs simply attest that a statement is true. In Branta’s case, that an address belongs to the recipient. All the ZK proofs do is verify that the transaction is valid.

Zero-knowledge software is a choice.

ZK is a choice that Branta has made and is proud to announce that Guardrail now offers Zero-knowledge verification. Plaintext verification is still available. As always, all data is purged after a given expiration, set by clients.

Branta now verifies that an intended wallet address is the correct address you should transmit your Bitcoin to, without ever seeing the plaintext address.

Building with Zero-knowledge in mind is a stake in the ground that freedom and privacy are values that mean something to a company, founder, and product.

Branta values freedom, privacy, and ushering in the world’s adoption of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.

The less you know, the better when it comes to personal information—especially as it relates to transactions.

Privacy matters.

Sound money matters.

People deserve the freedom to have both.

Try Branta Today: https://www.branta.pro