Umbra Gateway

The Problem

Helios solves trustless state verification, and keeps RPC calls local (as possible) but every eth_getProof call still goes to centralized RPC providers who collect:

  • Your IP address
  • Which addresses you're querying
  • Request timing and patterns
  • Transaction correlation data

There is no privacy-preserving RPC alternative.

The Solution

A two-component privacy infrastructure:

1. Anonymized RPC Gateway

  • Tor hidden service (.onion endpoint)
  • x402 micropayments (pay-per-request in USDC on Base)
  • Proxies to execution nodes without logging
  • Chainalysis Oracle compliance check (sanctions screening for US deployment...eventually)

2. Privacy Wallet Client

  • Electron desktop app
  • Embedded Helios (WASM) for trustless verification
  • Arti (Rust Tor) toggle for all RPC traffic
  • x402 payment client for RPC access
  • WalletConnect v2 for dApp connectivity (eventually)

Architecture

User Wallet (Electron)          Anonymized RPC Gateway (.onion)
┌──────────────────┐            ┌────────────────────────────┐
│ Helios WASM      │            │ 1. Receive JSON-RPC        │
│ Key Management   │─────Tor────│ 2. x402 payment validation │
│ x402 Client      │            │ 3. Chainalysis check       │
│ WalletConnect    │            │ 4. Proxy to execution node │
└──────────────────┘            └────────────────────────────┘

Key Differentiators

vs Infura/Alchemy vs Raw Tor vs Nym alone
No metadata collection x402 monetization model Production-ready (Arti 1.0)
Sanctions compliant Compliance layer Toggleable privacy levels
Privacy-first design Sustainable infrastructure Integrated wallet UX

Tech Stack

  • Gateway: Rust (axum + arti + x402)
  • Client: Electron + React + @a16z/helios WASM
  • Privacy: arti-client (Tor), nym-sdk (Nym mixnet)
  • Payments: x402 protocol on Base (USDC)
  • Compliance: Chainalysis Sanctions Oracle

Quick Start

# Gateway
cd gateway && go run main.go

# Client
cd client && npm install && pnpm dev

Conclusion: Currently, all privacy plays ultimately depend on the RPC layer. Solving RPC privacy is foundational—the other ideas can build on top of this infrastructure.

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