Citadel Compared to Full Transparency on DUSK
i spent lunch on this instead of scrolling.
used to think comparing Citadel to full transparency meant comparing how much data gets hidden. not the comparison at all, it turns out.
the more i traced the actual Citadel flow on Dusk, the less that framing held up.
full transparency puts every attribute onchain, permanently, for anyone reading the ledger.
Citadel replaces that with a sequence: a user requests a license on-chain from a License Provider, who issues it on-chain. no offchain step in what i could confirm, its all on the ledger up to that point.
later, the user proves ownership with a zero-knowledge proof. that opens a session and computes a session cookie on Dusk.
thats the part that changed my framing.
the user still has to send that cookie to a Service Provider over a separate, secure off-chain channel. only then does the SP scan the network for a matching session ID to verify it.
nothing about the on-chain proof tells the SP who the user is. it only confirms the license was valid.
the SP still runs its own check though, take an exchange verifying eligibility, the on-chain proof alone doesnt finish the job for them.
so full transparency and Citadel arent opposite amounts of visibility. one exposes everything by default. the other splits the process, part on-chain and provable, part off-chain and handled between two parties directly.
what actually changes isnt how much data moves. its where the verification work happens, and who ends up doing the last check.
still not sure how consistently that last off-chain check gets done across different service providers.
does that consistency matter as much as the zero-knowledge part does?
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk
i spent lunch on this instead of scrolling.
used to think comparing Citadel to full transparency meant comparing how much data gets hidden. not the comparison at all, it turns out.
the more i traced the actual Citadel flow on Dusk, the less that framing held up.
full transparency puts every attribute onchain, permanently, for anyone reading the ledger.
Citadel replaces that with a sequence: a user requests a license on-chain from a License Provider, who issues it on-chain. no offchain step in what i could confirm, its all on the ledger up to that point.
later, the user proves ownership with a zero-knowledge proof. that opens a session and computes a session cookie on Dusk.
thats the part that changed my framing.
the user still has to send that cookie to a Service Provider over a separate, secure off-chain channel. only then does the SP scan the network for a matching session ID to verify it.
nothing about the on-chain proof tells the SP who the user is. it only confirms the license was valid.
the SP still runs its own check though, take an exchange verifying eligibility, the on-chain proof alone doesnt finish the job for them.
so full transparency and Citadel arent opposite amounts of visibility. one exposes everything by default. the other splits the process, part on-chain and provable, part off-chain and handled between two parties directly.
what actually changes isnt how much data moves. its where the verification work happens, and who ends up doing the last check.
still not sure how consistently that last off-chain check gets done across different service providers.
does that consistency matter as much as the zero-knowledge part does?
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk