Developed by Heliax, Anoma is a blockchain network using the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. The project aims to facilitate the “independent community” by providing tools that enhance financial privacy. Anoma is in the testnet phase.
Anoma was initially developed based on Tendermint and used the Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus mechanism. Then, the project switched to using another consensus mechanism called “Typhon” created by the Heliax team itself. This mechanism enables consensus to be shared across the states of independent chains.
Highlights
Intent-Centric
Transactions are a foundational block to blockchains that allow users to transmit messages and assets across the network. Transactions are validated by validators and form a permanent and immutable chain of information.
For Anoma, however, it introduced a new concept called “Intent”. An intent is a user’s desire expressed on the blockchain and describes what they want to buy or sell. Users can also customize their intents to add constraints.
Intents are propagated on the network as “gossips”, which are communicated by intent gossip nodes. On the other side, matchmaking nodes seek to match compatible intents by running solver algorithms. This functions similar to the matching engine of an orderbook exchange, but at the network level. Thus, users on Anoma are able to find counterparties through a decentralized network of gossip and matchmaking nodes.
Security
Anoma provides composable privacy via the use of zero-knowledge proofs, more specifically , zk-SNARKs (Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge), preserving the privacy of users and their transactions. Anoma uses zk-SNARKs in its multi-asset shielded pool (MASP), which allows all assets to share the same shielded pool, which in turn increases the anonymity set for users.
Multi-Chain support
Anoma uses the inter-chain communication (IBC) protocol for communication between its blockchains and the wider. IBC uses relays to facilitate data transfer between blockchains.
Fractal Scaling
Anoma uses Fractal Solution to solve the blockchain scalability issue. Fractal refers to dividing Anoma into instances to handle different tasks in order to scale and respond to user growth. Each instance of Anoma is highly customizable and can be configured based on user needs and behavior.
Fractal will distribute transactions from the main blockchain to fractal instances that run in parallel, thus increasing overall network throughput. In this way, the network as a whole can scale without running into the same issues of centralization and performance that have plagued other large-scale projects.
Token
Currently, Anoma has no plans to issue tokens.
Development team
Anoma is being developed by Heliax. Heliax was founded by Adrian Brink and Awa Sun Yin. Both founders have extensive experience in blockchain and have worked together on research and infrastructure projects such as Tendermint, Cosmos, Solana, Near and others.
Investors
Since 2021, this project has completed 3 rounds of fundraising, with a total amount of up to $57.75 million. Fundraising rounds have the participation of leading investment funds in the crypto market such as Polychain Capital, Delphi Digital, Coinbase Ventures, etc.