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Liquid Privacy

Liquid Privacy

The first privacy enabled liquid staking protocol.

Created on 3rd December 2025

Liquid Privacy

Liquid Privacy

The first privacy enabled liquid staking protocol.

The problem Liquid Privacy solves

Liquid Privacy is an end-to-end system that starts with everything people already expect from liquid staking. It uses an ERC4626 vault, delegates to validators, earns rewards automatically, and gives users a simple receipt token. All the normal parts of liquid staking stay the same.

What changes is that users can choose a privacy enabled path. If someone wants their deposit or withdrawal to stay hidden, they can use the shielded route instead of the public one. This makes privacy in liquid staking practical rather than something that only exists in theory.

There is also a private bridge from Zcash to Starknet. Shielded ZEC can be staked directly, and users can later withdraw either publicly or with privacy, giving them a private in and private out flow.

The system is built with Noir and Cairo and is deployed on both Starknet and Ztarknet. The same design can be extended to wrapped BTC assets and other liquid staking ecosystems.

Liquid staking is already a proven part of DeFi, but the missing piece has always been privacy. Liquid Privacy brings the two together and lets users choose how they want to participate, while still helping secure networks, earn rewards, and support validators.

A longer detailed full demo is available in the provided links for anyone who wants a deeper walkthrough.

Easier to read Excalidraw flow is here https://excalidraw.com/#json=yxs1epMfuiK-MXjUOHlpi,SjTMkrO8PTpStnKfvb9CHg

Challenges we ran into

  • Learning Noir from scratch and figuring out the correct flow for Barrettenberg + Garaga.

  • Fighting CASM hash mismatches during Starknet/Ztarknet declares/deploys.

  • Realizing true private withdrawals require an off-chain Merkle indexer and wiring that into the relayer, circuits, cairo, and UI.

  • Threading the privacy flow into the frontend while keeping UX sane.

  • Discovering everything needed Poseidon-2 hashes end-to-end and retooling for that.

  • Connecting the Bridge functions, the contract functions, the auto delegations, the merkle indexer, the UI. It has been a journey of trial and error.

  • Built and intent based deposit flow that moves a deposit into an intent phase and allows any wallet to come along with a commitment and move it into the stake, this can be front run so it was stubbed from the UI as it is not a viable for a protocol like this.

It’s been a long grind, but we finally have the whole stack working and ready to submit.

Tracks Applied (8)

Cross-Chain Privacy Solutions

Liquid Privacy takes shielded ZEC from Zcash and routes it into Starknet using memo-based action codes, so users never r...Read More
Starknet

Starknet

Privacy Infrastructure & Developer Tools

Infrastructure: The Merkle indexer is the privacy backbone of the system. It listens for private-deposit events on Stark...Read More
Starknet

Starknet

Cross-Chain Privacy Solutions

Liquid Privacy moves shielded ZEC from Zcash into Starknet through a private relay flow, turning Zcash memos into on cha...Read More
Axelar Network

Axelar Network

Private DeFi & Trading

Liquid Privacy brings a private staking DeFi flow to Zcash users by making it possible for shielded ZEC to be bridged in...Read More

Zcash Community Grants

Privacy Infrastructure & Developer Tools

This project adds Zcash-aware privacy infrastructure: the relayer reads shielded ZEC memos and turns them into actions o...Read More

Zcash Community Grants

Generic Bounty

Liquid Privacy currently has basic documentation for the Zcash relay, the Starknet contracts, the Noir circuits, and the...Read More

Mintlify

General Bounty

Liquid Privacy works like a normal liquid staking protocol: it uses an ERC4626 vault, automatically delegates to validat...Read More

Project Tachyon

Private Payments & Transactions

Liquid Privacy adds a private payment flow that brings shielded ZEC directly into Starknet through a memo based relay. A...Read More

Star Fun

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