Privacy is an opportunity! That's the reason Bison invested in the Shade Protocol!

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) space has taken the world by storm over the past year and it continues to grow leaps and bounds in terms of service offerings and total value locked in. The space has witnessed meteoric rise in innovation in every possible sector: DEXs, payments, derivatives, lending, credit, insurance, custodial services etc in its quest to replace legacy financial systems via smart contracts.?

In the midst of this neck breaking DeFi innovation, a core attribute that has been missing is privacy. Web3 and DeFi requires one to give up privacy completely on account of the transparent nature of publicly distributed blockchain networks which makes transactions visible to all participants. This can have unintended consequences as exploiters commit to front running, hurting users in the form of higher gas fees. NFT minting auctions too are being rigged by whale trackers. Validators of blockchain nodes can themselves see and pre-empt transactions raising questions on the productivity of such decentralized networks - all these issues emanating due to transparency. Thus for DeFi to get mainstream, it's imperative that the blockchain networks meet the privacy needs of market participants.?

Enter Shade protocol. Built on the Secret Network, Shade protocol is a suite of connected privacy preserving DeFi dApps that attempts to bridge the privacy gap so far existing in the DeFi space. The first application launched so far is the privacy preserving stablecoin - Silk. Silk is Secret Network’s first stable coin made via SNIP-20 private and fungible token standard. While maintaining transactional privacy for token holders, Silk attempts to fulfill all functions of money as a medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account and a standard of deferred payment. Silk is a 4th generation stablecoin featuring privacy, collateral backing via treasury and staking, as well as algorithmic open market stability mechanisms. It is stabilized algorithmically by Shade - the governance token of both Silk and Shade protocol. With no block based inflation, Shade protocol is backed by a basket of global currencies and commodities. Silk has an edge over other stable coins?(Exhibit I)

(Exhibit I)

We, at Bison Fund believe that Shade protocol’s first product Silk has the potential to be a futuristic settlement option going forward as DeFi becomes mainstream. Its privacy feature will attract large institutional and retail investors and allow them to stake, arbitrage, store value and transfer with speed? at low cost. Besides Silk, Shade Protocol will also be launching its second product Synthetics which will enable creating synthetic positions on Gold and Crypto indexes.?

Bison Fund is thrilled to partner with the strong co-founders Carter Woetzel (Research Lead)? and Mohammed Patla (Project Manager) in their journey to make DeFi secured and permissionless. We are confident that Shade Protocol will unlock the untapped potential in the world of stablecoins, synthetics and DeFi as decentralization takes center stage and privacy becomes the key for its success. Welcome Shade:)