Privacy
What leaves the wallet, and who learns what.
What leaves the wallet, and to whom
| Who | What they get | What they can learn |
|---|---|---|
| Your node or provider | Every chain query: sync, balances, sends, lineage, collection checks | your own node nothing leaves this machine a provider which blocks and transactions you asked for, with your network address. Block cover is thin, so a provider can tell which blocks you asked for. Following a lineage, it can pick out the transactions that carried the item; not its name, and not the proofs |
| zecboat.com | The asset id, when you open an item: its metadata and artwork, by id | That this wallet opened that item. Nothing during verify, send or receive; nothing from a collection check |
| Nobody else | Nothing | — |
A wallet without its own node takes the chain’s answers from its provider. Balances, lineage and collection checks are then only as good as that provider’s answers, and the wallet says so: the send screen reads “Chain answers from: your provider”, and a lineage checked that way reads “Lineage checks out · your provider”, never “Verified”. Run your own node and the wallet checks the chain itself.
Running your own node is the only arrangement where nobody learns which items you looked at, or which lineages and collections you checked. The one exception is opening an item: its metadata and artwork come from zecboat.com by asset id.
What a knot reveals
Each transfer of a postcard writes one knot to the chain. Who can read it:
| Party | Can read |
|---|---|
| The new holder | every knot of the line |
| The sender, and any earlier holder | the knots up to their own transfer; none after it |
| Anyone else | no knot; they see a transfer with twelve more outputs than usual |
An earlier holder cannot decrypt or cryptographically recognise later knots. That is the whole of the claim.
- The shape is public. A knot transfer has a fixed shape: 14 actions, about 47 KB. While such transfers are few, an earlier holder watching the chain can guess that the next one is the resale; with a colluding provider the guess is near-certain. The claim above is a cryptographic guarantee, not a statistical one. A uniform shape for every transfer is planned, not in 0.7.1.
- The holder learns the path. The new holder learns which transactions carried the item; not who made them, what else was in them, or their values.
- Knots are permanent. A knot cannot be withdrawn. A holder whose viewing key leaks exposes the line up to their own transfer.
◐ Awaiting external review: these privacy claims have had no outside review.