Glossary
Railgun
An on-chain privacy system using zero-knowledge proofs and a shielded balance pool — lets EVM users hold and transact private balances of any ERC-20.
Railgun deploys a smart-contract shielded pool on Ethereum and several L2s. Users deposit assets into the pool, where balances are tracked as commitments inside a Merkle tree. Transfers happen privately via ZK proofs that the sender owns sufficient committed balance and is moving it to a specified note.
Unlike Tornado Cash (fixed denominations, single asset, post-mix withdrawal), Railgun is balance-based and supports arbitrary ERC-20s and on-chain calls from within the shielded set. The RAILGUN DAO governs the contract upgrade process.