About Hinkal
Source: Hinkal’s website
The blockchains are visible, transparent, and considered an unconditional advantage, but does that always work this way?
Сonfidential information and the blockchain are opposite things. Anyone who knows your address can view your payments, trace the source of your earnings, and analyze your on-chain activity. Scammers hop over there and never sleep.
Hinkal wants to fix this issue by providing a secure solution, and financial privacy across all networks. Hinkal was incubated at Stanford and Binance MVB and raised $5.7m in 2023 from Draper Associates, SALT, and Stanford Blockchain. Hinkal has processed $140m in private volume in 2024.
The project enables the re-staking of stETH, ETH, wBTC, USDC, and USDT to extend privacy to its users while stakers receive incentives and APRs.
How Does It Work?
Hinkal uses zkSNARKs (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument) to provide privacy for transactions. This happens when a person can prove they have certain information, without revealing it and interacting between the prover and verifier. For instance, some important transaction parameters such as the origin and destination addresses or the transaction amount are abstracted away by the zero-knowledge proof and a set of transaction relayers.
Besides, Hinkal’s investors who contribute to increasing the TVA (Total Value Anonymized) gain rewards, while the assets they contribute remain liquid for further usage.
Hinkal uses a combination of a shielded pool, ZK-Proofs, relayers, and stealth addresses to balance privacy with cost-efficiency, transforming the way on-chain trading operates.
When a user transacts through Hinkal, only Hinkal smart contracts and relayers appear on-chain. For an outside observer, it makes it impossible to distinguish which user does which transaction, given that the anonymity set is large enough.
Source: Hinkal docs
Hinkal also has an “Access Token” scheme for users to prove their honest intentions by demonstrating ownership of CEX accounts or passing privacy-preserving KYC/B via Authento, zkMe, or Galxe passports.
Hinkal has an “Integrity Check” to prevent malicious users from accessing the protocol. This check requires users to use centralized exchanges or DID protocols to prove compliance.
These attestations allow users to prove their legitimacy in the crypto space and use this proof to access Hinkal’s layer enabling non-disclosure transactions. Hinkal doesn’t have user records.
Hinkal’s Key Features
Source: Hinkal’s website
- No barriers
Сurrently, L1/L2 infrastructures can’t provide sufficient incentives for asset migration. Hinkal seamlessly integrates with existing liquidity, overcoming existing limitations.
- User-oriented functionality
Hinkal offers a strong execution layer. This provides a complete end-to-end experience with users having an opportunity to deposit assets into a shielded address and engage in various activities, such as buying/selling tokens on popular DEXs, staking, becoming liquidity providers, and yield trading.
- Beneficial ecosystem
Hinkal is introducing a win-win structure where participants and contributors benefit from each other, unlocked by incentivized staking and re-purposing of staked value.
- Cross-chain solution
Hinkal protocol unlocks the full potential of Privacy Pools with its horizontal solution across networks. Thanks to network abstraction, the entirety of the Shielded Pool can be used to mask cross-chain transactions.
The protocol supports 8 dApps with the highest TVL across 8 major EVM chains, providing users with versatility in their transactions.
Hinkal’s Use Cases
- Private on-chain operations. Assets, strategies on the market (copy-trading and frontrunning), and LPs aren’t visible to others;
- Private liquidation of tokens for VCs and protocols treasuries. VCs get their tokens right to the shielded addresses so no one can see the recipient and liquidator;
- Payments and transfers;
- Teams get their tokens into shielded addresses;
- Yield trading on Pendle;
- Swaps on DEXs including Odos, Uniswap, and 1inch;
- Staking on Convex, Beefy, and Lido;
- Lending and borrowing on Aave;
- Provide liquidity on Curve.
Hinkal’s “Shared Privacy” & EigenLayer
Hinkal brought in Shared Privacy coordination layer, empowering users to bootstrap Shielded Pool similarly to how EigenLayer enables Shared Security.
Stakers can re-stake their ERC-20 tokens to increase the Shielded Pool, which provides privacy for all chains at the same time. Stakers receive hERC-20 tokens enabling them to earn additional fees from private transactions while remaining liquid for use in other dApps.
One shielded pool can be used across all chains therefore solving the problem of scalability of privacy via removing fragmentation. This is achieved through chain abstraction solutions and native bridges.
Source: Hinkal’s blog
Users can use Hinkal’s Shielded Pool to store assets and make transactions across various networks and dApps, enabling them to engage with DeFi markets without compromising on privacy. To prevent illegal parties from using the protocol, Hinkal mimics the secure and confidential execution TradFi landscape.
Is Hinkal Safe?
The DeFi has its safety issues and to tame smart contract risks, Hinkal focused on the following points:
- Audits: Quantstamp, Secure3, and Zokyo;
- Real-time protection and wallet screening: Hexagate;
- Bug Bounties: Immunefi.
To make sure no illegal parties can access the protocol, Hinkal users need to pass an integrity check.
Q & A with the Hinkal Team
- Who is Hinkal’s target audience? Why should I use the platform if I’m a degen?
Privacy is a human right. In that sense, Hinkal is intended for everyone. It is built with the highest standards so it can accommodate the needs of institutional investors, whales, retail, and degens. As a retail investor, crypto bro, airdrop farmer, or degen, here are the use cases for you:
a) Yield and Airdrop farmers obfuscating wallet connections and funding them privately.
b) KOL confidentially holding and/or selling received tokens.
c) Payments/transfers.
d) Security of assets.
Users automatically participate in our Points Program. So by using Hinkal, you can do your everyday DeFi operations privately and receive Hinkal Points that will convert to awesome rewards! - Does Hinkal change fees?
Hinkal’s variable costs depend on the type of transaction (e.g. swap, staking, lending), token, and token amount.
Deposit: No fee
Pools: 3 bps (0.03%)
Stake: 3 bps (0.03%)
Swap: 3 bps (0.03%)
Withdraw with Relayer: 8 bps (0.08%)
Withdraw without Relayer: No fee - How do you run security checks on new wallets?
To use Hinkal, you first have to pass an Integrity Check. We have partnered with DID protocols and accept verifications from all major CEXs. These verifications ensure that you and your wallet do not belong on a sanctioned list. Simultaneously, Hexagate provides wallet screening and real-time protection. - How does anonymity work?
I thought everyone could see on-chain that I sent money to Hinkal and the platform then staked them in a protocol.
When depositing into Hinkal, your funds are added to a Privacy Pool that consists of the funds of all users. Transactions with those funds through Hinkal are untraceable - All transactions are done by Hinkal Relayers on behalf of the user. For an outside observer, all that is visible is Hinkal smart contracts and Relayer. So it is impossible to distinguish which user did each transaction. I - What protocols and chains are you going to add shortly? Will you integrate pools on Blast?
We are in the final stages of adding Aave lending and borrowing. All integrations and network support are based on popular demand. We get feedback and requests from our users and we add accordingly. - Do Hinkal liquidity providers get points from other protocols? For instance, if a user holds money in pufETH/ETH pool, will it get Puffer points?
Yes! Currently, liquidity providers and stakers can receive Renzo, Zircuit, and Etherfi points, as well as Kelp DAO miles. - Where is the team located?
The team is US-based in Menlo Park, however, we have remote team members in various European countries.
Final Thoughts
Hinkal allows you to hide your on-chain activity and restore control over your data. The platform is designed as user-oriented and intuitive, making all navigation and use straightforward.
So, if you’re tired of being exposed to other crypto users with all your details and seeking a user-friendly, safety-oriented platform for your on-chain activities, Hinkal could be a great option!
The protocol prioritizes security and prevents illegal parties from using the protocol by applying cutting-edge technologies and schemes such as "Access Token" with a robust validity check, zkSNARKs, and TVA (Total Value Anonymized) contribution rewards.
Hexagate supports the protocol’s security for real-time threat detection and mitigation, Quantstamp, Zokyo, Secure3 audits, and Immunefi's bug bounty security experts.