There are certain types of Financial Institutions that may want to set up and operate a Rayls Private Subnet 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 Privacy Ledgers 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 Subnet?

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

Important to note is that each Privacy Ledger is its own (EVM) blockchain, and the Commit Chain is also its own (EVM) blockchain, so a Rayls Private Subnet 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 Subnet, a Governor and Auditor are assigned when the Private Subnet 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 Governor of a Rayls Private Subnet, you can:

Establish your private, permissioned Subnet by installing an EVM-compatible blockchain (we recommend Hyperledger Besu) as the Commit Chain and deploy the Rayls Subnet Governor smart contracts.

Manage member registration requests from Privacy Ledgers, approving or deny them to join the Private Subnet.

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

Manage token registration requests from Privacy Ledgers to decide which tokens you will allow to be transacted within the Subnet. Currently Rayls supports ERC-20 and ERC-1155 token standards.

Enable private message and token transfers by connecting independent Privacy Ledgers via the shared Commit Chain within the Private Subnet.

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

Audit and oversee the Private Subnet - 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 Subnet. For a summary of available Rayls auditing features, see the Private Subnet roles page.

Create custom automated workflows with member Privacy Ledgers, 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, permissioned Subnets 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 Subnet Governor 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 Subnet 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 Privacy Ledgers can achieve 10k+ internal transactions per second and cross-Subnet transactions between Privacy Ledgers can be batched to go beyond the limits of the throughput of the Commit Chain 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 Subnet Governors 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 Subnet?

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

As a Subnet Operator...

Install the Rayls Private Subnet 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 Governor API or via Rayls Custody

Rayls Governor API - enforce governance rules directly into the Governor 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 Privacy Ledger...

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

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