There are certain types of Financial Institutions that may want to set up and operate a Rayls Private Network to enable other institutions to exchange tokenized value within a compliant (virtual) trading venue. Such institutions could include Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI) providers, like central banks, clearing houses, payment processors or stock exchanges.

Alternatively, another kind of institution - a commercial bank, let's say - may want to run their own private network of Rayls Privacy Nodes to maintain privacy and regulatory separation between their different subsidiary legal entities, business lines or branches.

Whatever the reason, if you're looking to create and manage a completely permissioned network for the private exchange of tokenised value with customisable governance and auditing, then you've come to the right place 👍.

But what exactly is a Rayls Private Network?

Each Rayls Private Network is a permissioned EVM-compatible network comprised of one Private Network Hub (the hub) and many Rayls Privacy Nodes (the spokes), which are all connected by the Rayls Protocol.

Important to note is that each Rayls Privacy Node has its own (EVM) blockchain, and the Network Hub has also its own (EVM) blockchain, so a Rayls Private Network is actually a permissioned network of multiple EVM-compatible blockchains that are connected by private cross-chain interoperability bridges.

Private bridges, you say? Yes! What makes it special is that the Rayls Private Bridges enable end-to-end transaction privacy and anonymity, using a combination of zero knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption. See the Rayls Cryptographic Concepts page for more detail.

To govern and oversee the Private Network, a Operator and Auditor are assigned when the Private Network is created. We are currently working to technically segregate these two roles, so that they may be managed by different departments of the same organisation, or managed by two (or more) independent organisations.

Okay, and what can I do with it?

As the Operator of a Rayls Private Network, you can:

Establish your Private Network by installing an EVM-compatible blockchain (we recommend Hyperledger Besu) as the Private Network Hub and deploy the Rayls Private Network Operator smart contracts.

Manage member registration requests from Rayls Privacy Nodes, approving or deny them to join the Private Network.

Assign roles to Rayls Privacy Nodes within the Private Network, such as Issuer, Participant or Auditor. Note that by default, only 'Issuer' roles will be able to register tokens to transfer to other Rayls Privacy Nodes, 'Participants' can only receive and send tokens registered by other Rayls Privacy Nodes, and 'Auditors' are not permitted to transact tokens. Custom role types can be developed too.

Manage token registration requests from Rayls Privacy Nodes to decide which tokens you will allow to be transacted within the Private Network. Currently, Rayls supports ERC-20, ERC-721, and ERC-1155 token standards.

Enable private message and token transfers by connecting independent Rayls Privacy Nodes via the shared Private Network Hub within the Private Network.

Manage and customize governance rules that are enforced across the Private Network, determining which members and tokens can be registered and transacted. For a summary of available Rayls governance features, see the Private Network roles page.

Audit and oversee the Private Network - a role that can also be managed by your organisation, or delegated to a third party. The Auditor has the power to "peek" into encrypted transactions and ensures the validity, legitimacy and consistency of the Private Network. For a summary of available Rayls auditing features, see the Private Network roles page.

Create custom automated workflows with member Rayls Privacy Nodes, such as conditional transfer requests or automatically enforced governance actions if a certain transaction is flagged by the Auditor.

Optimise network operations based on your use case e.g. transaction volumes, state validation frequency, fees model.

That's nice, but what are the benefits?

Rayls blends the must-have requirements of traditional financial institutions with the benefits of decentralised finance - we call this UniFi - aiming to accelerate the adoption of tokenized systems by regulated institutions.

Specifically, Rayls enables:

Private Networks that can securely connect to the Rayls Public Chain, bringing together the benefits of private issuance and real time wholesale settlement with public distribution and liquidity.

Independently governed, permissioned networks where the Private Network Operator has full control over the activity within their network and can enforce rules or restrictions as required to comply with regulation.

Transaction privacy and anonymity, where each individual transaction is privately encrypted (not just the Private Network overall) such that only the transacting parties have visibility, but where there is still validation by a designated Auditor to verify compliance.

Enterprise-grade scalability and security, where Rayls Privacy Nodes can achieve 10k+ internal transactions per second and cross-Private Network transactions between Rayls Privacy Nodes can be batched to go beyond the limits of the throughput of the Private Network Hub blockchain (e.g. Hyperledger Besu has a throughput limit of ~300 TPS).

Rich, insightful data. As transactions are all recorded in real time with common standards, Private Network Operators and Auditors can create dynamic data dashboards to show transaction values, volumes, token balances, revenue metrics and network monitoring.

Interoperability and connectivity with other blockchains and existing systems. The Rayls Protocol provides interoperability by design and Rayls components provide API endpoints to connect with external systems.

How do I interact with a Rayls Private Network?

Once installed, different users will interact with the Rayls Private Network in different ways.

As a Private Network Operator...

Install the Rayls Private Network package, including your preferred EVM-compatible Commit Chain (e.g. Hyperledger Besu), then you have three options to interact with Rayls: either via the Rayls Operator API or via Rayls Custody

Rayls Operator API - enforce governance rules directly into the Operator smart contracts
Rayls Custody - update Governance contracts via the Rayls Custody API
Rayls Auditor Application (on our roadmap, coming soon!)

As an institution with a Rayls Privacy Node...

Once installed, there are three ways for each Financial Institution to operate their Rayls Privacy Node:

Rayls SDK - developer-friendly CLI with standardised endpoints
Rayls Custody - interface via the Rayls Custody API
Rayls Privacy Node Application (on our roadmap, coming soon!)