Pepper

The problem it solves

The Problem: Onchain Transparency Limits User Privacy

DeFi is built on the powerful principle of transparency. Every transaction, every swap, and every balance is public. But for many real users and use cases, this creates friction, exposure, and even risk.

While Uniswap v4 unlocks modularity and customization via hooks, it doesn’t natively support confidentiality, especially at the swap level and onchain privacy remains an unsolved problem.

The Solution: Confidential Swaps via Inco Lightning + Uniswap v4

This project enables confidential token swaps on Uniswap v4 using Inco Lightning’s composable privacy layer deployed on Base Sepolia. We leverage Uniswap v4 hooks to seamlessly wrap/unwrap tokens into Confidential ERC20s (cERC20s) during the swap process — achieving privacy without compromising UX or composability.

Here’s how it's done:

• BeforeSwap Hook: The confidential token is unwrapped inside the hook, so the pool sees a standard ERC20 — fully compatible with Uniswap’s core logic.

• AfterSwap Hook: After the trade is executed, the token is rewrapped into its confidential counterpart, shielding the user's final balance.

Users interact with the same interfaces and tools they already use, while the privacy logic runs behind the scenes. By bringing seamless confidentiality to token swaps, this product makes DeFi safer, more usable, and more appealing for the next wave of users and developers.

Challenges we ran into

No major challenges except setting up the pool with the right wrap/unwrap permissions.