GhostLock: MEV Reaper

A stealth shield against MEV, encrypting trades and settling them fair.

Glance

• Live: Preview 🟢
• Youtube: Demo 🎥
• Blog: Hashnode 📝

🛡️ Overview

GhostLock: MEV Reaper is a cutting-edge DeFi platform that protects traders from Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) attacks through advanced cryptographic techniques and fair ordering mechanisms. Built on Base Sepolia, it leverages blocklock encryption, VRF-based ordering, and AI-optimized batch auctions.

✨ Key Features

• 🔒 Blocklock Encryption: Time-locked encryption hides trading intents until execution
• 🎲 VRF Ordering: Verifiable Random Function ensures fair transaction sequencing
• ⚡ Batch Auctions: Uniform pricing eliminates front-running opportunities
• 🤖 Trade Intents Settlement:
  • Future: Solver competition board to ensure liveness + decentralization.
• 📊 Transparency Panel (new):
  • Gas fee estimate,
  • Unlock block + decryption ETA (calculated dynamically per network),
  • Expected receive amount via 1inch API.
• 💳 Mock ERC-20 Tokens: ETH, USDC, WETH for dev/test.

🏗️ Architecture

Frontend (React + TypeScript)

• Framework: React 18 with TypeScript
• Styling: TailwindCSS with custom design system
• Animations: Framer Motion + Three.js for 3D components
• Web3: Wagmi + RainbowKit for wallet integration
• State: Zustand for client state management

Backend (Node.js + Express)

• Runtime: Node.js with Express framework
• Blockchain: Ethers.js for smart contract interaction
• APIs: RESTful API design with comprehensive endpoints
• Real-time: WebSocket support for live updates

Smart Contracts (Solidity)

• GhostLockIntents: Manages encrypted trading intents
• BatchSettlement: Handles uniform-price batch auctions
• EpochRNG: Provides verifiable randomness for fair ordering
• MockTokens: Test tokens for development and testing

⚔️ How GhostLock is Different

Compared to other MEV-resistant efforts, GhostLock stands apart:

• Flashbots / SUAVE

  • Focus: private mempools + off-chain transaction sequencing.
  • Limitation: requires trust in relays / builders; opaque order-flow markets.
  • GhostLock advantage: no trusted relay; instead, ciphertexts are natively encrypted on-chain and decrypted only after safe block height. No privileged actors.

• CoW Protocol

  • Focus: batch auctions with solver competition.
  • Limitation: intents visible before clearing → still exploitable; solvers can extract flow.
  • GhostLock advantage: adds Blocklock encryption + VRF randomization, so intents remain hidden until reveal, then shuffled to remove sequencing edge. GhostLock inherits batch auction fairness but eliminates pre-reveal leakage.

• MEV-Boost / PBS

  • Focus: splitting block builders and proposers.
  • Limitation: improves validator decentralization but not user-level trade protection.
  • GhostLock advantage: user-first MEV protection, solving leakage at the transaction level.

• Secret Network / TEEs

  • Focus: hardware-enforced secrecy.
  • Limitation: trust in hardware enclaves, supply-chain risk.
  • GhostLock advantage: cryptographic, open, and verifiable; no hardware black box.

⚠️ Limitations & Edge Cases

• Decryption timing mismatch: If unlock block < inclusion block, could allow premature reveal. Mitigation → safety margins + epoch alignment.
• Solver centralization: Current AI call is centralized; roadmap includes solver marketplace + bond/slashing to prevent manipulation.
• Metadata leakage: Ciphertext size/timing may leak info. Roadmap → padding + dummy intents.
• Latency vs UX tradeoff: Batch auctions add delay (~minutes). Mitigation → deploy on L2 for faster block times.
• Oracle/API dependency: Reliance on 1inch & external VRF oracles. Add fallback quoting + distributed randomness in roadmap.

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ and npm

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/your-org/ghostlock-mev-reaper.git
cd ghostlock-mev-reaper

2. Install dependencies

# Install root dependencies
npm install

# Install server dependencies
cd server && npm install && cd ..

3. Environment Setup

# Copy environment files
cp .env.example .env
cp server/.env.example server/.env

# Update with your configuration
# - Add your WalletConnect Project ID
# - Configure RPC URLs
# - Set contract addresses (after deployment)

4. Start Development Servers

# Terminal 1: Start frontend
npm run dev

# Terminal 2: Start backend API
npm run server

5. Access the Application locally

• Frontend: http://localhost:3000
• Backend API: http://localhost:4800
• Health Check: Preview
• Peak the server here 👀: Preview

📋 Smart Contract Deployment

Deployed Smart Contracts on BaseSepolia Network:

• BaseSepolia Faucets
• GHOSTLOCK_INTENTS_ADDRESS
• BATCH_SETTLEMENT_ADDRESS
• EPOCH_RNG_ADDRESS
• MOCK_ETH_ADDRESS

📖 API Documentation

Endpoints

Auctions

• GET /api/auctions - List all auctions
• GET /api/auctions/:id - Get specific auction
• GET /api/auctions/stats - Get auction statistics

Markets[ZEROMEV API]

• GET /api/markets - List all markets
• GET /api/markets/:id - Get specific market
• GET /api/markets/stats - Get market statistics

Future Roadmap

• On-chain verified randomness Intefrations → Calling the Drand( VRF) verification baked directly into EpochRNG contracts, so ordering proofs are trustless.
• Liveness guarantees → Bond + slashing for missed reveals, fallback threshold revealers, and permissionless settlement calls so no one can grief the auction.
• Privacy hardening → Add ciphertext(intent) padding, dummy intents, and batch-only publication so metadata leakage doesn’t kill the whole “encrypted” vibe.

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Acknowledgments

• Dcipher Network upholding the permissionless threshold signing network
• Blocklock Protocol for time-locked encryption
• Randomness Protocol for VRF implementation
• Base for the underlying blockchain infrastructure
• Drand for distributed randomness beacon

Happy building! 😄😊