Overview
Why confidential distribution
A public blockchain records every allocation for anyone to read, forever. For a token distribution that visibility is not a feature, it is a liability. Here is the cost, and how Obscura removes it.
The problem
When you run an airdrop, a vesting round, or a bulk payout on a normal token, every amount lands on the blockchain in the clear. The moment the transaction confirms, anyone can read your entire cap table: which wallet got how much, the running subtotals, and the size of the pool. Nothing needs to be hacked. It is public by design, and it stays public.
That single fact creates a chain of downstream problems.
What it costs you
| What is exposed | What it costs |
|---|---|
| The full cap table | Competitors, journalists, and acquirers see exactly what your team, investors, and advisors hold. |
| Each recipient's balance | Individuals are doxxed by wallet, turning them into targets for phishing, extortion, and scams. |
| Amounts and unlock sizes | Bots front-run and snipe around them; sandwich and other MEV attacks extract value from the flow. |
| Airdrop eligibility and size | Sybil farmers and sniper bots pile in the moment the numbers are visible. |
| Vesting unlock amounts | Traders position for the sell pressure of each unlock before it happens. |
MEV is not a fringe concern: cumulative extraction on Ethereum passed roughly $1.8B by mid-2025, with sandwich attacks the single largest share. Public amounts are the raw material these strategies run on.
How Obscura fixes it
Obscura encrypts the amount before it ever reaches the blockchain. Using Zama's FHEVM, each allocation is sealed as ciphertext and stored as a handle, not a number. The distribution still works exactly like a normal token, balances update, transfers settle, claims succeed, but the value itself is unreadable onchain.
- Only the recipient can decrypt their own amount.
- Only you, the distributor, can decrypt the totals.
- Everyone else sees encrypted handles, so there is no cap table to read.
Not a mixer
Obscura does not hide who is transacting or break composability. Addresses and transfers stay standard ERC-7984; only the amounts are encrypted. It is confidential, not anonymous.The advantages
- No cap-table leak. Allocations, subtotals, and pool size are ciphertext, not a spreadsheet.
- Recipient privacy. Each recipient sees only their own number; no one sees anyone else's.
- Confidential, but auditable. Disclose a single amount to a chosen auditor or regulator without making it public.
- Nothing to snipe. With amounts and unlock sizes hidden, the usual front-run-the-unlock play loses its inputs.
- Real tokens, not an escrow black box. Balances are live ERC-7984, composable with other contracts.
- One-signature UX. Distributors batch a whole flow into one signature (EIP-5792 and EIP-7702); recipients decrypt with one signature per session.
- Verifiable, not custodial. Everything runs onchain; there is no trusted server holding your numbers.
What is still public
Confidential is not the same as invisible, and it is worth being precise. Recipient addresses, the transfers themselves, the token and contract addresses, and the distributor's address remain visible, exactly as they are for any ERC-7984 token. What Obscura removes is the one thing that leaks your cap table: the amounts. See Confidentiality & FHEVM for the full public-versus-private breakdown.