Findora, a public blockchain focused on privacy in decentralized finance, announced today the testnet launch of its latest project, "Yellow Submarine," in partnership with the Project Columbus DAO.
Named after the iconic Beatles song, Yellow Submarine aims to offer a one-stop privacy protocol that lets users manage and discreetly transact Ethereum-based tokens across multiple blockchains.
Yellow Submarine combines Findora's native chain with an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) extension known as Findora Smart Chain. (EVM refers to a software platform developers use to create decentralized applications on the Ethereum network.) It uses zero-knowledge proofs—a cryptographic method that allows certain details to be kept secret during a transaction while still demonstrating that the transaction took place and was legitimate.
Launched in April 2021, Findora is maintained by a distributed ecosystem of developers, including the Findora Foundation and Discreet Labs. In October, Findora announced a $100 million ecosystem fund for research, development, and infrastructure—including staking and liquidity. Staking and liquidity are major parts of decentralized finance, or DeFi, a group of blockchain-based services that enable peer-to-peer transactions, lending, and other services.
Discreet Labs CEO Warren Paul Anderson tells Decrypt the programmability of an EVM-compatible blockchain like Findora is what sets Yellow Submarine apart from privacy protocols like Monero or Zcash. But also Ethereum.
Features on Findora’s roadmap include a decentralized privacy-preserving vault, confidential money markets, NFTs, and private DAO fundraising. If Ethereum is into decentralized finance or DeFi, Findora is pushing what it calls PriFi.
"Given Ethereum is near-synonymous with DeFi, this is a major milestone for privacy in Web3," Anderson said.
Findora says the mainnet of Yellow Submarine will launch later this year.