vitalik posted his "paranoid mode" setup on oct 16. zkAPI payments, a tor circuit per convo, cover traffic, local prompt rewriting. 300k+ views, and almost nobody outside power users can actually run it.
$PARANOID is that idea shipped on sol, sitting around $250k mc.
what it is in plain words:
you buy questions once in USDC (0.002 per question, packs from 5 USDC). every prompt after that carries a fresh zk proof that "some paying member" sent it. the gateway checks the proof and forwards the prompt. it never learns which member asked, and two of your chats can't be linked.
reuse a ticket and the math leaks your secret, anyone can slash you. rate limit nullifiers, no trust needed.
they don't pretend they invented it either. it's a port of zkAPI (vbuterin/zkapi, the buterin + davide crapis design). solana has poseidon and bn254 as native syscalls, so it fits really well.
what's actually built:
> anchor program live on mainnet
> circom groth16 circuit, depth 20 tree (~1M members), trusted setup transcript published
> github open: rust + typescript + circom, 45 tests, reproducible build that's supposed to match the deployed program byte for byte
> 17+ models behind one openai compatible endpoint, plus an MCP connector for claude code / cursor
> IP shield via an independent OHTTP relay, PII scrubbing in the browser, a 4 layer whitepaper
> x402 so agents can pay and ask anonymously, and now ZEC from shielded addresses
all of that in about a week.
token angle:
every USDC spent on questions goes to a burn vault. anyone can crank it to market buy $PARANOID, half burned, half to stakers. pay in $PARANOID and you get 10% off, and those tokens get burned. usage = buy pressure, simple.
why it looks early:
private AI is a real category. venice sits around $1B, nillion around $40M. $PARANOID is at ~$250k with mint and freeze revoked, main LP locked, top 10 holders under 30%.
still tiny, the anon set is small and usage has to show up. but the tech is real and the narr
