Frequently Asked Questions
What if Railgun gets sanctioned?
Railgun is a permissionless smart contract. RAIL20 is non-custodial — no entity can freeze or block users. Frontends may be geo-blocked, but contracts cannot be taken down.
Can I shield any ERC-20?
v1 supports B20 tokens specifically (Base Beryl). Future versions will add standard ERC-20 via non-rebasing wrapper.
Why Base?
- B20 standard — native privacy primitives
- Low gas — ZK verification costs fractions of a cent
- DeFi liquidity — Uniswap, Aerodrome, Meteora
RAIL20 vs Mixer
| Feature | Mixer | RAIL20 |
|---|---|---|
| Amounts | Fixed | Arbitrary |
| Withdrawal | Wait | Instant |
| After deposit | Just withdraw | Send, swap, DeFi |
| Anonymity set | Same denomination | All shielded users |
Can I see my own balance?
Yes. Derived locally from your spending key and the on-chain Merkle tree. Computed client-side, never sent to any server.
How private is it?
Privacy = anonymity set size. With 1,000 shielded notes, your tx is indistinguishable from 999 others.
Gas without ETH?
Broadcaster pays ETH gas on your behalf, charges you in B20. You only need B20 tokens.
Is RAIL20 audited?
Not yet. Testnet only. Audit planned before mainnet. ZK circuit uses battle-tested components (Poseidon, PLONK, circomlib).
Is RAIL20 open source?
Yes. All contracts, ZK circuit, and backend are open-source. Verified on Basescan.