Project Title
Charon
Description
Charon is a decentralized protocol for a Privacy Enabled Cross-Chain AMM (PECCAMM). It achieves privacy by breaking the link between deposits on one chain and withdrawals on another. It works by having AMM’s on separate chains, but LP deposits in one of the assets and all orders are only achieved via cross-chain depositing and then withdrawing it as either an LP or trade with any address. This can be expanded to where the commitment is placed on multiple chains as well, allowing the party to achieve anonymity even regarding what chain they’re on. To achieve cross-chain functionality, Charon utilizes tellor as an oracle to trustlessly pass commitments (proof of deposits) between chains.
Manifesto/Vision
Confidentiality prevails as a prerequisite to the persona of the distinguished population. The ability to move digital value anonymously is fundamental conceding the global social space we are building is to be naturally independent of the tyrannies which the incumbent authority wishes to enact. By providing a permissionless path for trading that preserves anonymity, Charon seeks to act as a check on authoritarian states and their corporate extensions from colluding to expand surveillance and enact restrictive sanctions to coerce cooperation.
Problem
How do you trade assets across two different chains? How do privately move from one chain to another? How do you create a mixer on one-chain that benefits from the liquidity of an AMM/ mixers on other chains?
Solution
A cross-chain AMM with built in privacy features. Merger of the two features (cross-chain AMM and mixer) achieves added liquidity for AMM LP’s and added privacy guarantees for all users. Charon is the first protocol (I know of) to allow private transfers to different chains. It also has the benefit of not making giant honey-pots like traditional bridges.
Product Features
It’s a solidity repo and then I’ll fork a version of tornado cash’s decentralized front-end, make it cross-chain compatible and have it work like a charm.
Validation
You guys are doing great. Really awesome community and fund you got going on.
Progress
Soldity/ circom PoC built and presented at hack.money in May 2022.
Differentiation (from other projects)
It’s similar to tornado cash in some of the privacy aspects (upgrading to newer versions of things) and for users of the AMM it works similar to balancer (single sided withdrawals, traditional AMM) or thorchain in the cross-chain aspect. The differentiation comes in the merger of the AMM and mixer and then the ability to mix/trade across multiple chains (more than 2) is a unique value proposition.
Team
Grant Request $
$69,420
What the Funds Are For
Protocol Development
- writing circuits
- generic, multi-chain solidity code
- updating AMM protocol to use some current standard (UNI? Sushi?)
User Interface
- brand face to enable ease of use without knowledge of underlying technology
- Ability to move seamlessly and work with wallets on multiple chains
Documentation
- usage of protocol
Security Audit
- May need more for this piece
Help Requested
Feedback, Audits, and Anonymity. First off is audits. I’m still working on writing the circuits for the cross-chain proofs and I also had to update the circom version, so all the tornado cash audits I’ve found don’t really apply any more. Help finding an affordable auditor would be great. I also need helping launching/ maintaining this. I’m a US citizen and I feel confident in building it, but there’s obviously legal consequences to launch and run it.
Additional Resources
PoC (not multichain yet - GitHub - themandalore/charon )