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RAILGUN Private Ethereum
RAILGUN
Company Overview.
Description.
RAILGUN is a decentralized, on-chain smart contract privacy system deployed on Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, and Arbitrum that uses Zero-Knowledge (ZK-SNARK) cryptography to enable private wallet addresses, confidential transfers, and anonymous DeFi interactions without requiring users to bridge assets to a separate privacy chain. The protocol has processed over $4 billion in total shielded volume since its July 2021 launch, with more than $100 million in total value shielded within its privacy set. RAILGUN is governed by the RAIL token through a DAO structure, with no corporate entity, no VC investors, and no centralized control — "there is no RAILGUN company." The initial grant was issued by the Right to Privacy Foundation, a registered non-profit charity.
Key Infrastructure.
Users generate 0zk addresses that appear indistinguishable on block explorers, and all transfers, swaps, lending, borrowing, and dApp interactions occur within the privacy set.
The system achieves stronger privacy with less liquidity than other protocols because DeFi composability incentivizes users to hold tokens within RAILGUN longer, continuously adding noise that benefits all participants in the anonymity set.
Any wallet flagged by these providers cannot generate a valid zero-knowledge proof to enter the privacy set — tokens are automatically returned to the sender's original address and gain no privacy.
This system ensures that sanctioned or criminal actors are excluded while legitimate users maintain full privacy, directly implementing the Privacy Pools model cited by Vitalik Buterin as the compliant path forward for on-chain privacy tools.
The SDK abstracts ZK-SNARK proof generation, 0zk address management, Broadcaster communication, and on-chain contract interaction into developer-friendly interfaces.
Multiple independent community developers have built RAILGUN-integrated wallets using this SDK, demonstrating its production readiness for third-party wallet and application development.
Railway supports Shield (privatize existing EVM assets), Private Transfers (send to other 0zk addresses), Private DeFi (swaps, yield, liquidity from private addresses), and compliance tools including Viewing Keys and tax reports.
The wallet encrypts seed phrases locally, collects zero user logs, allows full RPC configuration, and supports self-signing transactions using any 0x wallet, demonstrating the full capabilities of RAILGUN.
RAIL is not a privacy coin and is not required to use the protocol — it exists purely for decentralized governance.
Token allocation was distributed without VC involvement: 25% to privacy-supporting airdrop recipients, 25% to the Right to Privacy Foundation for long-term development, and 50% to the DAO treasury (locked, mintable only by DAO vote).
There are no venture capital investors or equity holders — the protocol is "truly decentralised."
Broadcasters are independently operated nodes that receive user-signed transactions and submit them on-chain from their own 0x addresses for a nominal fee, breaking the link between the user's funding address and the eventual on-chain transaction.
Users can alternatively self-sign transactions using any 0x address they control, including those generated from a different seed phrase than their 0zk address, providing flexible privacy trade-offs.
Additional Features.
General Questions.
RAILGUN is not a company — it is a decentralized, DAO-governed privacy protocol deployed as smart contracts on Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, and Arbitrum. The protocol uses Zero-Knowledge SNARK cryptography to create private 0zk wallet addresses that enable confidential transfers, anonymous DeFi interactions (swaps, lending, borrowing, liquidity provision), and shielded balances — all without requiring users to bridge assets to a separate privacy chain. RAILGUN also provides a TypeScript SDK for developers to integrate privacy features into their own wallets and applications, with Railway Wallet as the reference open-source implementation.
RAILGUN's users are individual DeFi participants seeking transaction privacy and developers building privacy-enabled wallets and dApps. The protocol has 7.84K RAIL token holders participating in governance. Multiple independent community developers have built RAILGUN-integrated wallets. There is no enterprise sales or client onboarding process — it is a permissionless smart contract system accessible to anyone.
RAILGUN has no legal entity and therefore holds no licenses. The initial development grant was issued by the Right to Privacy Foundation, a registered non-profit charity. The protocol's PPOI compliance system automatically enforces sanctions screening at the smart contract level — blocking flagged wallets from Elliptic, ScamSniffer, PureFi, and SlowMist — without requiring user KYC. This architecture was cited by Vitalik Buterin as a deployed example of the Privacy Pools concept that enables compliance with sanctions law while preserving privacy for legitimate users.
RAILGUN is deployed on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Polygon (MATIC), and Arbitrum. The protocol supports most ERC-20 tokens including USDC, USDT, DAI, and governance tokens — any token with an ERC-20 interface can be shielded and used privately. RAILGUN does not require users to move to a separate chain or trust a bridge; privacy is achieved directly on the user's preferred EVM chain through on-chain smart contract logic.
