Many wallets depend on external services to execute their functions.
Kohaku would ensure “that each party to a transaction knows only what is strictly necessary.”
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) determined that strengthening the privacy of network users is a priority.
In this framework, as reported by CriptoNoticias, he presented a new working group made up of researchers, engineers and cryptographers who They will work with that purpose on Ethereum.
One of the tools they work on is Kohaku, defined by the EF as “a set of primitives that allows the wallets be secure and process private transactions minimizing dependence on trusted third parties.
Primitives are the basic technical components (such as cryptographic functions or security modules) upon which different applications are built.
By developing its own primitives, the Ethereum Foundation is betting that wallets can carry out secure and private operations without resorting to external services that manage data or validate transactions.
That is, “minimizing dependence on third parties” means reducing the need to trust intermediaries to safeguard keys, process payments or protect user information.
When the Ethereum Foundation talks about standalone wallets, they are referring to applications that do not depend on external infrastructure or services to function. For example, centralized servers, intermediary validators or third-party APIs (Application Programming Interface).
Many current wallets (like Metamask, for example) trust in external services to connect to the network (Infura, Alchemy, etc.), obtain prices, or even to process certain operations.
This dependency implies that part of the privacy and sovereignty of the user is subject to those intermediaries.
What is it for and what are the functions that Kohaku includes?
Powered by Vitalik Buterin and EF developer Nicolas Consigny, the Kohaku Kit aims to offer an SDK (software development kit) with privacy and security features for other developers. create wallets that natively incorporate these functions.
Furthermore, the implementation of Kohaku would guarantee “that each party to a transaction knows only what is strictly necessary, and that it is exposed to the minimum risk necessary to complete it,” stated Consigny.
Some of the main functions from Kohaku are:
- Private sending from the wallet through different privacy protocols.
- Private receipt of funds: not only the sending, but also the receiving of cryptocurrencies can be done privately.
- Private payment requests integrated into wallets using privacy protocols.
- Unified view of balances across all enabled privacy protocols.
- Social account recovery using zero-knowledge technologies (ZK), such as ZKemail or ZKpassport.
Among other qualities of Kohaku, each decentralized application (dApp) will have a separate account by default, and connections between wallets and applications will be made using a privacy-oriented protocol.
Kohaku will also integrate a post-quantum security mechanism based on signature scheme Falcon and the algorithm Dilithium.
Finally, Consigny clarified that the working group behind Kohaku aims to present a preliminary version for the DevConnet event that will take place between November 17 and 22 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From the repositorythey warn that the kit is still in development.