KSM RFP #1 - Shielded Kusama Hub Transfers

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The Ref is Live: KSM RFP #1 - Shielded Kusama Hub Transfers - $50k Total Prize!

This is a CANARY!

Here lies discussion for an upcoming Kusama Treasury “Request for Proposal” for EVM-Based, Multi-Asset, ZK-Shielded transfers on Kusama Hub.

It was in inspired by this Discussion Post from rust_syndicate!

While the offer is appreciated, we took the liberty here on AAG to suggest trying out an RFP to slightly change the scope (to Kusama Hub only) and establish a more robust set of supervisors as the builders wish to remain anonymous.

It also allows us to experiment with tendering multiple offers for a Requested Proposal!

There is likely a LOT of room for improvement here. This post will be updated with suggestions. See the bones of this RFP and leave your suggestions to make it better (or even coherent) below!

KSM RFP #1 - Shielded Kusama Hub Transfers

Prize Pool: $43,000
Finder’s Fee: $2,000 **
Supervisors: $5,000

Supervisors (Bounty Curators)

We are looking for 4 project supervisors. Some names have been put forth (whether they know it or not):

  • Flipchan (from original Discussion) :white_check_mark:
  • Byte (Erin) - Nominated :white_check_mark:
    * Birdo (Make Privacy Great Again) - Nominated
  • James Slusser - Volunteered :white_check_mark:

Timeline

  • Monday, March 17 - AAG Discussion & this forum post!
  • Monday, March 24 - Single-ref Bounty + Curators
  • 4 Weeks after Bounty Funding - Submission Deadline
  • Thursday July 31 - Project Completion (Pending Kusama Hub Launch)

Project Scope

  1. Smart Conttact Development
  • A Solidity-based smart contract deployed on Kusama Hub
  • ZK enabled for private deposits & withdrawals
  • Compatibility with all Kusama Hub assets
  1. User Interface
  • Browser-based, mobile-ready UI hosted on IPFS
  • Support for: Deposits, Withdrawals, Transfers, XCM Transfers
  • Compatible with popular ecosystem wallets (Nova Wallet, Talisman, Subwallet)
  1. Anti-correlation Attack Mitigations:
  • Fixed deposit amounts (e.g. 1, 10, 100, 1000 units)
  • Batch payouts for withdrawals to multiple users
  1. Interoperability
  • Ability to receive assets via XCM from any Kusama-connected parachain and transfer them to Kusama Hub for use in shielded pool.
  1. Open-Source Delivery
  • All code (smart contracts and UI) published under the MIT license
  • Publicly accessible repositories
  • Project updates shared transparently via Polkassembly, Subsquare, or Polkadot Forum
  • Developer & User documentation

Milestones

  1. Smart contract development & testing
  2. UI development & integration
  3. XCM functionality implementation
  4. Final deployment & documentation

So, that’s it! If you read this and see room for improvements please let us know below! We’ll post what we have on chain to see if Kusama tokenholders wish to set these funds aside for the development of this project!

** re: Finder’s Fee: this payment is set aside to incentivize a broad search for the right implementor. Finder’s Fees are paid out at time of team engagement. Teams that submit themselves can collect their own Finder’s Fee at completion of project.

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Great initiative @ChrawnnaCorp!

I think one crucial part here is going to be the frontend/UI.

The dev component is mostly solved by Tornado Cash, but having a frontend up and stay up without getting people into prison is going to be more complex. I think that component should be more heavily advertised, since it is the more delicate part of the solution.

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Is the Polkadot Legal Bounty that was executed a few months ago going to provide comprehensive free legal support to the successful tenderer(s)? If so what is the cap on how many hours they’ll provide to each tenderer?

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Hey,
This can be solved in multiple ways, one way that was pitched in the original proposal is to auto deploy new UI releases to IPFS, since we can utilize PAPI and other polkadot javascript libs the site could pretty much be static and a React UI could be deployed on IPFS pretty easily without to much human interaction.

~flipchan

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Does it even have Kusama in its scope? Doesn’t look like it to me

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thanks for the nomination, how it’s not something I would like to do at this time :slight_smile:

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Thanks birdo!

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I would like to try my hand in the Supervisors track, what do I have to do to be apart of that? I would also like to attempt to be apart of the development track or talent seekers.

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KSM RFP #1 - Shielded Kusama Hub Transfers

Hey Kusama crew, EagleDAO here—huge Polkadot fans and ambassadors excited to put our hat in the ring for the Shielded Kusama Hub Transfers RFP with a couple of ideas we think could shine. With Polkadot App (Pay) beta testing coming to an end, we’re cooking up an NFC-powered payment app for Kusama Hub—imagine tapping your phone to privately move KSM or other assets, all wrapped in ZK proofs and a mobile UI on IPFS. It’d play nice with Nova and Talisman, handling deposits, withdrawals, and XCM transfers smoothly. We’re not the biggest outfit, but we’re passionate about bringing Kusama into the real world, and we’d love to team up with folks who share that spark.

We’ve also got a $WHC (Wheelhouse Construction) concept—a Solidity smart contract for Kusama Hub’s EVM, blending multi-asset escrow with a construction twist. Picture shielded funds released in phases with client and manager sign-offs, tied into XCM for parachain flow, and built with the RFP’s fixed-amount, batch-payout smarts. It’s a rough gem we’re shaping, and we’re eager to collaborate with talented devs who can help polish it. Everything’s going open-source on GitHub—community first, always.

EagleDAO’s committed to giving this our all by July 31, chasing that $43k prize, but we know we’re stronger together. If you’re a team or dev itching to jump into privacy tech with us—whether it’s NFC, ZK, or Substrate—hit us up. Let’s make Kusama prouder than ever, side by side. Who’s game?

~dwulf69

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Thanks for this Jay, I think the RFP model is really important going forward and I really appreciate the effort and ideas gone into this.

I’ve spoken with flipchan and would be happy to accept the nomination as a supervisor, HOWEVER would strongly suggest someone who is very familiar with zk on a deeper technological level also be involved as well who can evaluate the soundness of the implementation - I’m not sure how comfortable I am without having someone who can evaluate the output more technically/architecturally. I’m happy to provide more general project services, frontend feedback, UX feedback, integrations, and promotion/ensuring everything stays on track, because of course I would very much like to see this happen.

Thank you @Leemo for the nomination!

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EVM cannot really do shielded transfers particularly well. Yes, Tornado cash exists, but sounds easy to break. This doesn’t mean you cannot pay someone to set similar up of course. It’s better than nothing I guess.

A shielded pool should ideally be a seperate parachain that uses cryptographic batching and an optimized nullifier database. These features already somewhat conflict with the smart contract model, but only slightly conflict with the frame tx model, assuming you use unsafe code in your pallets, if you want only safe code, then you need to overhaul frame or break its tx model. All doable, but somewhat more involved than forking Tornado cash.

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@ChrawnnaCorp KusDAo V3riFic4+ion

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Hey all, just wanted to jump in here after following the discussion and spending some serious time thinking about it. Sharing a few thoughts and learnings based on research we’ve done previously:

EVM-based shielded pools (like Tornado Cash) can be functional, but structurally - nullifier sets still grow linearly, which challenges scaling over time. Then there are correlation risks (timing, withdrawal patterns). In geneeral, the EVM model is less flexible for privacy workflows compared to a Substrate runtime.

Tornado showed that even if the chain+backend is immutable and decentraliseed, the UI / human touchpoints remain the regulatory attack surface @alice_und_bob

@burdges is absolutely right:
A truly strong, sustainable shielded system would ideally be at the parachain level where you can optimize everything natively:
cryptography, batching, nullifier storage, transaction timing, XCM integrations… the works.

Substrate gives us insane flexibility compared to EVM. We’d be wasting it if we just settle for EVM-style mixers long-term.

:hammer_and_wrench: We’d like to propose a two-track thinking

For now, the RFP scope is well defined for the use case and demand needed in Kusama ecosystem, but the long-term could be: to build a native Kusama privacy parachain for asset transfers:

  • Full Substrate pallets for shielded pools
  • Native ZKP verification
  • Efficient nullifier management (even cryptographic accumulators)
  • Native XCM privacy support, to bring in a wide range of tokens
  • Batching and timing obfuscation built into the runtime
  • Have a decentralized team & control over the protocol

The native route sets Kusama up with real, scalable, future-proof privacy, for the whole web3 ecosystem.

:heart: We would love to not just help build whatever comes from this RFP, but actually take it further:

  • Turn it into a full-blown privacy protocol project within Polkadot/Kusama, and grow it beyond just RFP deliverables
  • Explore additional privacy layers (like shielded staking, shielded governance, shielded NFTs even)
  • Dive deeper into areas like multi-asset shielded pools, native zkSNARK verification, XCM-native privacy channels, efficient nullifier scaling, and runtime-level batching/timing obfuscation
  • Maintain, evolve, and defend it for years via treasury + grants support

Basically - start here, but aim way bigger and actually solve existing asset transfer privacy concerns.

There’s a real chance for Kusama to be the network that gets privacy right, sustainably and credibly. We (Chainscore Labs) have applied for the RFP and we’d love to help make that happen. :rocket:

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Hey *,

The project has begun and updates are being published here:

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A version of Kusama Shield is deployed here:

Check it out and give some feedback if you got 2 minute to spare.
Docs:

Notes:
It’s recommended to use talisman browser wallet and google chrome

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