Miden Opens Its Core Partner Network By Invitation Only, Privacy Safeguards Included

Miden, the a16z-backed privacy channel that spun off from Polygon last year, opened its main partner network on Monday (October 26). Launch partners and invited users can now transact with real funds for the first time.

This is a limited and temporary phase intended to test the network. Co-founder Bobbin Threadbare says the public mainnet will be available in a few months.

• How it works: On Miden, your own device executes each transaction and proves it with STARKs, a type of zero-knowledge proof that relies solely on hash functions. The chain only stores engagements (hashes) of private account data. Threadbare claims that most transactions can be proven in less than three seconds on a phone. Guardians managed by LambdaClass, Gateway, Para, and KODA save private account state so users can retrieve it.

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• How to enter: Access goes through BreadMiden’s self-custodial wallet for iOS, Android and Chrome. Early Access codes are being released in waves starting today. The wallets are pre-funded with USDCx, which Miden issues through Circle’s xReserve, to cover fees. Sales are capped below $1,232.462, a nod to the “Goldilocks” Miden uses under the hood. From there, you can send, trade, browse routes like Aggglayer and NEAR Intents, and deposit into Aave on Ethereum. Miden’s advice is to only use funds you can afford to lose.

• The guardrails: Confidentiality is not yet absolute. In its launch articleThreadbare explained that validators currently collect users’ private transaction inputs to double-check proofs, so the activity is hidden from the public but not from validators. Validators also store threshold-encrypted transaction details that a group of them could decrypt “during extraordinary events (e.g. hacks).” The exchanges are also public at the moment. Miden says he is prioritizing safety for this phase. It plans to remove the guardrails once the protocol has been tested and formally verified, a step Threadbare places after the public mainnet.

• What’s next: The partner mainnet is temporary and users will need to opt out before a reset, the deadline for which has not been announced. The public mainnet will migrate from the Poseidon2 hash function to one based on Blake3, as trust in Poseidon2 has been shaken. It will also bring a more robust fee model and full ZK block proofs. The current network still operates with flat rates, partial block proofs, and a centralized block producer.