Building a Privacy-First Cryptocurrency from Scratch with Substrate

blockchain #rust #opensource #privacy

This Christmas we launched LUMENYX, a privacy-focused blockchain built on Substrate.

Why Another Cryptocurrency?

Most privacy coins require you to trust a team, a foundation, or a company. We wanted to build something with zero trust assumptions - just code.

Technical Stack

• Framework: Substrate (Polkadot SDK)
• Privacy: ZK-SNARKs for optional transaction privacy
• Consensus: AURA for block production, GRANDPA for finality
• Supply: 21M fixed (Bitcoin-style tokenomics)
• EVM: Compatible for smart contracts

Philosophy

No team. No foundation. No ICO. No premine. Just code on GitHub.

Anyone can run a validator - there's a free faucet to get started.

Update (Dec 31, 2025)

Network was reset due to consensus issues during multi-validator testing.

We decided to abandon the original 4% bootstrap allocation and start fresh:

• 0% premine - all LUMENYX from mining only
• 5000 LUMENYX in validator faucet (from genesis)
• We run one validator now, mining alongside you
• When enough validators join, we disappear
• Before leaving, anything above 5% burned to: 5Gbh1MkL3KSAMmwx7wxYyCYRtzHhXocSAAvcT6gD21L4Q978

This chain belongs to no one. Run a node. Become a validator. It's yours.

Links

• GitHub: github.com/lumenyx-chain/lumenyx

Would love technical feedback from the dev community.