MeshSearch
Search privately. Pay anonymously. Trust no one.
Created on 14th March 2026
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MeshSearch
Search privately. Pay anonymously. Trust no one.
The problem MeshSearch solves
The Problem It Solves
Every web search you make is a data exhaust trail. Google, Bing, and most AI search tools log your IP, your queries, and your patterns — building a profile that's sold, subpoenaed, or breached.
MeshSearch makes private web search practical for both humans and AI agents:
- AI agents that search the web leak their user's intent. MeshSearch gives Claude, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent a search tool where queries are ZK-committed before leaving the device — the relay network never sees the plaintext query.
- Anonymous micropayments instead of surveillance. Instead of paying with your attention and identity, you pay per-search with USDC via x402 — no account, no tracking, just a wallet signature.
- Auditable routing, not a black box. Traffic routes through 3 ENS-named relay hops. Every result shows which relay operators handled your traffic — you can verify it on-chain.
- Your history, under your key. Search history is AES-256-GCM encrypted with your wallet key and stored on Fileverse. Only you can decrypt it. No server ever sees plaintext.
Challenges we ran into
Challenges I Ran Into
1. Getting the x402 payment flow to actually fire
The MCP tool was returning results without triggering payment — the 402 response was being swallowed silently. The fix was separating the payment gate into its own
/api/paid-search
endpoint on the Next.js side and ensuring the client re-sent the request with the signed USDC authorization attached.2. ENS resolution was fake
The relay routing code was pattern-matching strings like
relay1.meshsearch.eth
instead of actually resolving them on L1. Swapped in@ensdomains/ensjs
v4 withensPublicActions
on a viem client — now relays do real forward/reverse resolution at startup and each routing decision.3. Using the wrong Fileverse product entirely
First pass used Fileverse's low-level Storage V2 IPFS API (UCAN tokens, multipart uploads, Contract/Invoker/Chain headers). The hackathon integration was actually the dDocs API — a completely different product with simple REST + API key auth (
POST /api/ddocs
,GET /api/ddocs/:ddocId
). Rewrote the storage service from scratch once the hackathon docs clarified the correct endpoint surface.4. ZK proof generation being synchronous in tests
Semaphore v4 Groth16 proof generation blocked the event loop long enough to cause test timeouts. Moved proof generation to a worker and added
vi.setSystemTime
mocking in tests to avoid flakiness.Tracks Applied (10)
Privacy
AI
Best creative use of ENS
Ethereum Name Service
Pool prize
Ethereum Name Service
Best Privacy Application using BitGo
BitGo
Build What Big Tech Won't
Fileverse
AI × Onchain
Base
DeFi 2.0 - New Primitives
Base
Privacy
Base
BEST Overall Project
Technologies used
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