Kusama Shield Comparison to Tracked Protocols
Comparison of Kusama Shield against other privacy protocols in the ecosystem.
| Property | Kusama Shield | Privacy Pools | Railgun | Hinkal | Curvy | Fluidkey |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Confidentiality | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Partial | No |
| Anonymity | Yes | Linkability | Yes | Yes | Partial | Linkability |
| Asset Privacy | Yes | No | Partial | Partial | Partial | No |
| Plausible Deniability | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Censorship Resistance | Yes(strong) | Yes (ragequit) | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Compliance Gates | None | ASP (withdraw) | POI (app) | Chainalysis | Predicate | None |
| Client-side Proving | Yes | Yes | Yes | Optional/TEE | No | N/A |
| Partial Withdrawals | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Implementation Maturity | 2: Testnet + Mainnet <1 year | 4: Mainnet 1+ yr | 5: Mainnet 2+ yr | 3: Mainnet <1 yr | 3: Mainnet <1 yr | 4: Mainnet 1+ yr |
Key Differentiators
Kusama Shield Advantages
- No compliance gates — fully permissionless withdrawals
- Strong censorship resistance — no centralized control points
- Full asset privacy — all shielded assets maintain confidentiality
- True anonymity set — unlinkable deposits/withdrawals
Implementation Notes
- Uses Groth16 ZK proofs (snarkjs)
- Merkle root is public input (must match on-chain tree) — unlike v4 where root is private
- Supports native tokens and pallet assets (ERC20-like)
- 128-depth LeanIMT tree (256 leaves max before upgrade)
Performance Benchmarks (PolkVM)
Powered by 30x customized Poseidon on PolkVM (Rust → PVM):
| Operation | Paseo Gas | Ethereum Gas | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single Poseidon hash | 2,706 | 32,800 | 12x cheaper |
| Depth-20 Merkle path | 37,956 | 605,000 | 16x cheaper |
| Groth16 verification | 3,990 | 202,216 | 51x cheaper |
| Shielded pool deposit | ~45K ($0.19) | ~$54 | 270x cheaper |
| Shielded pool withdrawal | ~7K ($0.03) | ~$15 | ~500x cheaper |
Max Poseidon hashes per block: 39 (Solidity: 1, exceeds limit) Architecture: Solidity logic + Rust Poseidon + Groth16 verification
Reference
Protocol data and maturity ratings sourced from https://private-transfers.pse.dev/.