Horizen Announces ZkAudit -The First And Only Fully Decentralized And Privacy-Preserving Audit Blockchain
The release of zkAudit marks a major milestone for the Horizen ecosystem. This is the first and only fully decentralized and privacy-enabled audit (proof of reserve) blockchain that doesn’t require any third-party validators.
zkAudit is a complete and integration-ready blockchain built by Horizen Labs for companies that would like to increase their transparency while preserving user privacy.
zkAudit is built to solve the inefficiency and lack of transparency in traditional auditing processes. By leveraging Zendoo with zkSNARK privacy technologies, zkAudit can secure, verify, and validate proof of reserves in near-real-time without revealing identifiable information or relying on third-party validators. This means a much faster, more transparent, more secure and more accurate auditing process.
“This is a major milestone. We are thrilled to work with industry leaders and partners to disrupt traditional audits by leveraging zero-knowledge proofs and Horizen’s Zendoo.
zkAudit is a perfect example of how other projects can utilize the open ledger technology with zero knowledge privacy technology to verify information without relying on any third parties while preserving privacy. We built zkAudit to be fully programmable and flexible for seamless integration into existing systems.
I’m confident that zkAudit is going to change how the world does auditing.”
– Rob Viglione, Horizen co-founder and CEO of Horizen Labs.
Through zkAudit, businesses like accounting firms, exchanges, lenders will be able to unequivocally prove facts such as revenue and liquidity in near real-time without revealing any sensitive information about the underlying transactions or relying on any third party validators. This allows any businesses to improve their transparency while preserving the privacy of their users and counter-parties.
zkAudit FAQ
Q: How can zkAudit keep information BOTH transparent and private?
A: zkAudit is equipped with zk-SNARKs, a privacy technology that allows verification without revealing identifiable information. This means all of the sensitive information in a transaction is undisclosed and can remain confidential, enabling privacy while upholding validity in near-real-time.
Q: How does zkAudit verify information without replying to a third party?
A: zkAudit leverages on zk-SNARKs (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge), a particular technology that allows a subject to prove that he knows some information without revealing it. Zero-Knowledge proofs require no interaction between the prover and verifier.
Q: How does zkAudit verify the assets of a company are real?
A: zkAudit can track a number of external blockchains (i.e. the Bitcoin blockchain) where deposits come from. Through recursive zk-SNARK technology, each proof verifies all previous transactions while proving a new transaction. Thanks to this, the entire history of transactions is proven. At the end of each epoch (a defined number of blocks), the sum of the previous transactions is published together with a final recursive proof, proving that the sum is derived from the entire subset. The proof can be verified by every zkAudit node: this allows the Horizen blockchain to establish decentralized and verifiable cross-chain transfers from all blockchains in the ecosystem, without relying on trusted validators.
Q: How would zkAudit benefit a blockchain network or platform?
A: zkAudit will:
- Help prove the owner of particular (but hidden) blockchain addresses.
- Demonstrate that the transactions associated with those addresses are real blockchain transactions.
- Confirm that the sum of those transactions add up to a certain amount.
Therefore the platform or blockchain can unequivocally prove facts such as income/revenue and liquidity without revealing any sensitive information about the underlying transactions that lead to those results. This ensures transparency to our users without compromising security.
Q: What will zkAudit change about the current auditing process?
A: Compared to traditional audits, zkAudit will allow projects to conduct audits in near-real-time without dependencies on centralized entities. This allows our community and users everywhere to verify our transactions whenever they wish. zkAudit brings the best of both worlds, providing critical transparency efficiently while preserving the security and privacy of our users.
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About Horizen
Launched in 2017, Horizen is a technology platform that enables businesses and developers to quickly and affordably create their own public or private blockchains on the largest node network in the industry. Through its fair and inclusive ecosystem, Horizen fosters a community where everyone is empowered and rewarded for their contributions. With its unique Sidechain technology, Zendoo, Horizen provides all necessary components for an easy and fast deployment of a fully customizable blockchain. For more information, visit horizen.io.
About Horizen Labs
Horizen Labs is securing the world’s transition to Web3 by helping organizations reimagine the way they use blockchain to tackle some of their most important challenges. With a deep focus on enterprises and governments, Horizen Labs is building the secure and reliable offerings necessary to drive blockchain adoption into the mainstream.
Through a unique combination of platform capabilities, flexible architecture, sidechain compatibility, and enterprise-grade security, Horizen Labs is building the onramp for tomorrow by making blockchain safer and more accessible for Web2 organizations today. For more information, visit horizenlabs.io
