Resolving the Dichotomy: Defi Compliance under Zero-Knowledge

Opinion from Dr. Andreas Freund. 21 August 2024

TL/DR

There are platform options for DeFi protocols to combine regulatory compliance with out compromising decentralization. Utilizing blockchain know-how and cryptographic protocols, DeFi protocols can guarantee safe and clear transactions that meet regulatory requirements whereas sustaining person privateness. Such protocols implement compliance guidelines on digital property and their holders. Due to this fact, they’ll present a strong and versatile system to assist DeFi protocols navigate the advanced regulatory panorama, contributing to a safer and extra dependable decentralized monetary ecosystem.

Introduction

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has taken the monetary world by storm (not less than within the OpEd pages of Bloomberg and Fortune), providing a permissionless and clear different to conventional monetary establishments with a complete locked worth (TVL), as of this writing, of practically $100Bn. Nevertheless, this very decentralization creates a serious hurdle: compliance. Not like typical establishments with central management, DeFi protocols are sometimes ruled by self-executing code and lack a single entity answerable for implementing laws. This raises a essential query: how can these progressive protocols combine compliance guidelines into their DNA with out compromising their core rules of decentralization and autonomy? This problem lies on the coronary heart of DeFi’s future, as regulators grapple with discovering the precise stability between fostering innovation and defending shoppers since practically all of the ~ $100Bn in TVL and billions of {dollars} every day trades on Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) in response to DeFi Lama haven’t undergone any correct compliance checks. Sadly, and really just lately, regulators have resorted to authorized motion towards the likes of Uniswap, Twister Money, and different DeFi protocols.

After thumbing their noses at regulators for a few years, the organizations constructing DeFi protocols at the moment are realizing two issues:

The phrases decentralization and No-Management don’t shield towards costly authorized actions.
DeFi mass adoption requires higher UX and compliance enforcement — each monetary and information privateness, and on the similar time.

Even when DeFi protocols wished to implement compliance checks instantly, it could not solely upset their greatest shopper’s apple carts however would require protocol rewrites. In different phrases, fully new variations of the protocol with older variations nonetheless working with none compliance checks. That isn’t a tenable scenario, since, very probably, the foundations or DAOs governing DeFi protocols would nonetheless be held to account for non-compliant variations of their protocol since “sensible contracts are eternally” — sure, Marilyn Monroe pun quote supposed.

Fortunately there’s a manner ahead for these protocols. Leveraging blockchain-native compliance mechanisms – a mix of sensible contracts, and blockchain-verifiable zero-knowledge proofs, representing assertions {that a} person and submitted asset transaction are compliant with the relevant legislation in a jurisdiction, yields a complete framework to make sure regulatory compliance, threat administration, and transaction reporting for any digital asset. The instructed framework extends the work initially completed by Azgad-Tromer et. al (2023) that mixes sturdy regulatory compliance actions with privateness safety, enabling, for instance, the creation of compliant variations of digital property that implement jurisdictional insurance policies whereas being privacy-preserving. The unique framework by Azgad-Tromer et al. preserves digital property’ financial worth and technological capabilities whereas making certain that delicate info is selectively seen solely to approved legislation enforcement authorities – Fincen, SEC, OFAC, and many others. This enhances the safety and integrity of digital asset transactions whereas sustaining privateness for official customers. Furthermore, the framework’s compatibility with several types of digital property resembling fungible and non-fungible digital property makes it a flexible resolution.

In brief, the framework augments blockchains with extra details about actors’ identities and asset provenance in a privacy-preserving method and was first applied by Sealance. This progressive method allows the framework to handle the challenges posed by the decentralized nature of digital property. Attaching Compliance-Related Auxiliary Info (CRAI) to transactions involving digital property in encrypted type ensures that essential compliance information, resembling person identities, credentials, transaction historical past, and fund provenance, stays safe and tamper-proof – see FinCen steering on Anit-Cash-Laundering for example. The framework incorporates cryptographic protocols that may routinely implement compliance insurance policies assigned to digital property — what holders can and can’t do with such a digital asset — and digital asset holders — what property people can and can’t maintain and/or commerce. It will probably additionally replace CRAI in the course of the recording of transactions on the blockchain. This integration permits real-time compliance monitoring and reporting, enhancing transparency and accountability within the digital asset ecosystem.

Word, that earlier work on this space was carried out by Kaira et al. in 2021 for the case of a centrally managed Hedge Fund. Whereas complementary to this dialogue, it doesn’t contact on KYC/AML compliance, which is the central query we’re discussing on this paper.

Find out how to make DeFi Protocols Regulatory Compliant

So how does such a framework function within the context of DeFi protocols, given that the majority property on these platforms aren’t natively regulatory compliant?

Fig. 1: Excessive-Stage DeFi (ZKP) Compliance Structure as an extension of Azgad-Tromer et al.

The important thing perception within the extension of the Azgad-Tromer et al. framework is {that a} sensible contract pockets used, for instance, in Account Abstraction (see EIP-4337) as a consultant of a number of Entity Owned Accounts (EOA) has considerably extra flexibility resulting from its programmability than an EOA. If a sensible contract pockets is mixed with different sensible contracts that implement compliance guidelines and work together with a DeFi protocol we have now all of the components we’d like. Consider a sensible contract pockets as functionally equal to a conventional Dealer-Supplier, a regulated and registered entity, that locations trades for his or her shoppers, and a DeFi protocol with a number of compliance implementing sensible contracts as a registered inventory or commodity alternate with its buying and selling and compliance capabilities. Word {that a} Dealer-Supplier is a *registered entity* that could be a *authorized delegate* of an everyday investor to position trades on the investor’s behalf and implement commerce compliance guidelines. The inventory alternate is one other *registered entity* – registered with regulatory authorities such because the SEC or Fincen – and its compliance and buying and selling capabilities are separate by design — separation of issues is a major compliance rule.   

With this analogy in thoughts, we will now assemble a regulatory-compliant DeFi protocol stack built-in with a compliance framework such because the one pioneered by Sealance by way of coverage supervisor contracts with related compliance insurance policies, and a compliance coverage and compliant account registry. Essentially the most simple implementation is thru “sensible contract hooks” in DeFi protocols as they permit customized compliance enforcement extensions to the protocol, for instance, Uniswap V4 or Seaport. Nevertheless, this doesn’t remedy the difficulty for DeFi protocols that should not have such capabilities; at present nonetheless the bulk.

There’s a normal protected sample to work together with DeFi protocols that should not have contract hooks for compliance checks when a person receives a yield-bearing instrument such because the Compound yield token (YT) e.g. cDai. In our description under, we implicitly assume that DeFi protocol contracts such because the Uniswap Router or Place Supervisor are registered contracts such that the compliance coverage enforcement mechanism embedded in “compliant” property can establish them as compliant and never require a further zkp compliance assertion to be embedded with, for instance, a switch operate. 

Fig. 2: Instance zkp-Compliance Stack utility with Unsiwap and compliant sensible contract pockets

A compliance-safe DeFi interplay sample is described under utilizing the instance of including liquidity to a Uniswap Liquidity Pool for specificity:

A person (EOA) calls a DeFi Protocol compliance (wrapper, also called a logical abstraction) contract immediately or by way of the person’s Good Contract Pockets in an account abstraction state of affairs.
Word: the sensible contract pockets has already been given a Energy-Of-Legal professional certificates by way of an permitted KYC/AML supplier, resembling a financial institution or an alternate. This certificates is utilized in the identical method as a real-world Energy-Of-Legal professional works; it marks the sensible contract pockets as ready to make use of the zero-knowledge proof (zkp) assertions of compliance that the zk-based compliance platform creates for a person’s asset transactions.
The DeFi (wrapper) contract verifies the submitted zkp compliance assertions utilizing the zk-based compliance stack – a sensible contract system see Fig 1 – routing compliance assertions within the type of zk-proofs to (compliance) coverage enforcement factors (PEP) – sensible contracts as a part of the zk compliance stack) the place proofs are verified and actions aka transactions are both allowed or denied. If the compliance checks are profitable, liquidity is added to a pool — both a pool of compliant or uncompliant property — on behalf of the person by the DeFi (wrapper) contract. Let’s assume for the next a compliant asset pool

The DeFi compliance (wrapper) contract receives the YT and creates a compliant YT asset using one of many zkp assertions supplied by the person.
The DeFi compliance (wrapper) contract then transfers the now compliant YT to the EOA or the sensible contract pockets — this additionally requires a zkp compliance assertion. 

This prevents customers from buying and selling non-compliant YTs until the person manually unwraps the asset. Word that each one the yield now accumulates to the compliant YT. A variant of this method is utilizing DeFi compliance library contracts with the identical performance as a compliance wrapper contract whereas not requiring belief within the preliminary wrapper contract deployment.

For DeFi protocol transactions of compliant property (e.g. lending, swaps) or compliant property with non–compliant property (e.g. swaps), there’s a further sample:

A Person (EOA) can make the most of an authority delegation coverage expressed as a PEP for its sensible contract pockets such that the sensible contract pockets can work together with a compliant asset with out being required to supply a zkp compliance assertion. This may be achieved by the person making a delegating zkp compliance assertion (delegation to sensible contract pockets) and submitting it to the zk-based compliance stack to be validated after which registered with a selected Energy-Of-Legal professional coverage inside a PEP. Energy-of-attorney-type insurance policies can exist at a jurisdictional degree, by asset class, and even on the degree of particular person property.
Key Level: An authority delegation coverage to be utilized in a transaction is on the asset degree, not the extent of a payee, a payer, or an authorizer degree. This permits an asset to establish if a payer or payee is permitted to work together with it, with out being required to supply a zkp compliance assertion.
Identified DeFi protocol sensible contracts e.g. Uniswap Router, or an Aave Lending Pool supervisor can, due to this fact, additionally make the most of a Proof Delegation coverage as described above. The first distinction is that on this context the entity creating the delegation zkp compliance assertion (regulatory whitelisting of a Defi protocol sensible contract), and the registration is completed by a certified coverage creator or registrar resembling a KYC supplier throughout the zk-based compliance ecosystem.
Key Level: As within the case of an EOA, this registrar-proof-delegation coverage is on the degree of the asset, and might differentiate jurisdiction, asset class, and even particular person asset. Nevertheless, it’s of a distinct authority delegation coverage sort as a result of the requester has one other ecosystem function. Due to this fact, the compliant asset should have each varieties of authorization delegation insurance policies hooked up to it as a result of each a sensible contract pockets, a Defi protocol compliance wrapper, and a Defi Protocol sensible contract will work together with the compliant asset.

Conclusion

In abstract, to make sure the longevity and acceptance of DeFi protocols by mainstream customers, these protocols should transfer in the direction of regulatory compliance. The described compliance platform, an extension of the framework proposed by Azgad-Tromer et al. and applied by Sealance, presents a sensible resolution permitting DeFi protocols to include compliance measures whereas sustaining decentralization. It makes use of blockchain know-how and superior cryptographic protocols for clear, safe transactions that meet regulatory necessities, all whereas preserving person privateness. It enforces compliance guidelines on digital property and their house owners, offering a strong and versatile system. The important thing advantages of the described compliance framework for DeFi protocols are:

Regulatory Compliance: The framework allows DeFi protocols to stick to regulatory requirements with out compromising their decentralized nature (although KYC is essentially nonetheless completed by centralized entities).
Danger Administration: The framework allows mechanisms for efficient threat administration and transaction reporting for numerous digital property.
Privateness Safety: The framework incorporates cryptographic privacy-preserving options resembling zkps making certain that delicate person info utilized in compliance credentials and in creating zkp compliance coverage assertions stays confidential, with private info saved and accessible solely by KYC/AML or different compliance credential suppliers resembling banks or exchanges
Safety: Leveraging protected cryptographic protocols, the framework can improve the safety and integrity of digital asset transactions by implementing advanced enterprise guidelines.
Versatility: It’s appropriate with several types of digital property, together with fungible and non-fungible tokens, making it a flexible resolution for the DeFi ecosystem.
Transparency and Accountability: The framework promotes transparency and accountability within the DeFi house by way of real-time compliance monitoring and reporting (by way of onchain submitted, absolutely encrypted stories).

Such a framework can help DeFi protocols in navigating the intricate regulatory setting, contributing to a safer and extra reliable decentralized monetary ecosystem.

Dr Freund could be contacted through e-mail at a.freundhaskel@gmail.com