Private to the world. Provable to whoever asks.
Put a real book on a transparent chain and every counterparty reads your positions. Put it on a private one and everyone is back to trusting the operator. Cipher is the format that ends the choice: sealed by default, and carrying its own proof that it is backed and solvent. It is a standard, not a feature — IX is simply the first to use it.
Specified in full. Not production code, and not live anywhere.
ASSET ID
IX·INF·0007
- Book
- Private infrastructure
- Asset
- AI compute cohort
- Holder
- SEALED
- Amount
- SEALED
- Other holders
- SEALED
Reserves cover everything issued
Provable this period, no balance shown
Traces to a recorded asset ID
ILLUSTRATIVE ENTRY. SEALED FIELDS FOLLOW THE IX CIPHER SPECIFICATION, WHICH IS NOT YET LIVE.
HOW IT WORKS
Prove the statement, not the ledger.
The chain stores commitments rather than contents. Anyone can check the maths without ever seeing a balance.
- 01
Seal
A holding is written as a commitment. The amount and the holder are encrypted; the record that it exists is public.
- 02
Prove
Each period the book proves reserves cover everything issued — without publishing either figure, or any single balance.
- 03
Verify
A counterparty checks the proof themselves. No index, no auditor's letter, no request to the operator.
- 04
Disclose
When someone has a right to detail, you hand them a key for exactly that — one holding, one period, one question.
The trade-off nobody has solved
This is the reason serious books have not moved on-chain. A public ledger leaks positions, concentrations and pricing to anyone who looks. A private ledger asks everyone to trust whoever runs it. A fund, a lender or a landlord refuses both, and so nothing moves.
- Public: verifiable, but your book is readable
- Private: sealed, but you are trusting an operator
- Cipher: sealed and verifiable at the same time
PUBLIC
- Commitment
- 0x7f3a…c21e
- Spend tag
- 0x19be…04aa
SEALED
- Amount
- Holder
- Counterparty
A holding no one can read
Each holding is a sealed note rather than a line in an account. What reaches the chain is a commitment to it and a one-time spend tag — enough to prove it exists and cannot be spent twice, and nothing else. Transfers reveal no amounts and no parties.
- Amount and holder encrypted, on a public chain
- Cannot be forged, cannot be double-spent
- The same shape for a fund share, a loan or a title
RESERVES
ISSUED
Solvency you can check, not request
Each period the book proves reserves cover liabilities without revealing either number. Solvency stops being a quarterly letter and becomes a standing property anyone can test — and where reserves sit on-chain, there is nobody to trust at all.
- Reserves cover issuance — proven, not asserted
- No balance disclosed to prove it
- On-chain reserves need no trusted party
- AuditorHolding #12 · Q3GRANTED
- LenderIs the balance under the limit?YES
- ExchangeHolder outside the sanctions set?YES
- Former partnerHolding #12 · all periodsREVOKED
Disclosure by choice, not by default
Transparency should be something you grant, not something you lose by turning up. Give a specific party sight of a specific slice — or answer their question without opening the book at all: is this balance under the limit, is this holder outside the sanctions set.
- Grant sight of one holding or one period
- Answer a question without revealing the figure
- Scoped to who asked, and revocable
HOLDINGS → FUNDS → INDEX
A standard, not a product
Cipher is circuits, contracts and an SDK — something another issuer can adopt without asking us. And because a proof can be built from other proofs, a fund can prove itself from the proofs of what it holds, and an index from the proofs of its funds. IX is the first book to use it, not the owner of it.
- Adoptable by issuers with no tie to IX
- Proofs compose — a book can prove from its holdings
- A format, not a chain and not a coin
WHERE IT SITS
Three layers. Every product.
IX Cipher is part of layer 01. Each layer builds on the one before it — this is the whole picture, and where each piece actually stands.
Tokenize private assets that earn real revenue.
The first market: AI compute held as one unit, marked from live rates, income accruing into it.
The sealed claim under every market — verifiable by anyone, amounts and holders kept private.
Asset owners bring their assets onto IX and issue them under their own brand.
Lock what you hold and borrow against it.
Capital for AI infrastructure.
SPECIFICATION
What it is, and what it is not.
Written down plainly so the claims can be argued with before any of it ships.
- PURPOSE
- The claim format for every book on IX
- CHAIN
- Public — privacy comes from the format, not the venue
- HOLDINGS
- Sealed notes, not readable accounts
- PROVES
- Backed · solvent · real
- DISCLOSURE
- Granted per party, per scope
- TRUST
- None for on-chain reserves; attested for off-chain
- NOT
- A chain, a coin, a mixer, or a consumer app
- STATUS
- Specified — designed in full, not shipped
QUESTIONS
The obvious ones.
Can I use Cipher today?
No. It is specified in detail but is not production code and is not live anywhere. Holdings on IX today are ordinary transparent tokens, and we label them that way rather than implying otherwise.
If everything is hidden, why trust it?
Because you are not asked to. Each claim carries a proof that it is backed and solvent, and you check the proof yourself. Where the reserves sit on-chain there is no trusted party at all; where they sit off-chain, that attestation is the one assumption, and we would rather name it than bury it.
Is this a privacy coin?
No. There is no coin, and it is not a new chain. Cipher is a format for recording claims on assets so a book can be private and provable at once. Privacy is the means; a verifiable ownership record is the point.
Could someone other than IX use it?
That is the intent. It is a standard — circuits, contracts and an SDK — and it is worth more the more books use it. IX is the first, not the owner.
Why does this matter for IX?
Because without it the larger markets cannot come. A credit book or an equity book on a transparent chain publishes exactly what its holders need kept private. Cipher is what makes those markets possible at all.
IX CIPHER — SPECIFIED
The part that makes the rest possible.
IX-CORE proves the rails work. Cipher is what lets the markets that matter use them.