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FAQ

General​

Is zk-pad live?​

Yes, on BNB Smart Chain mainnet. The current contracts were deployed on 2026-10-05 and replace a first deployment of 2026-10-04, which is deprecated and was never used for a launch. The protocol is administered by a single key (not yet a multisig or timelock). The only official contracts are the ones on the addresses page.

What chain does it use?​

BNB Smart Chain (BSC). Coins trade on PancakeSwap Infinity concentrated-liquidity pools.

Is there a bonding curve or "graduation"?​

No. Coins trade on their final PancakeSwap Infinity pool from the first second. See single-sided liquidity.

Does zk-pad have a token?​

No.

Fees​

How much does a trade cost?​

The coin's fee F (1% to 5%, set by the creator) plus PancakeSwap's protocol fee of about 0.03%. During the first two minutes an optional anti-sniper fee may be much higher.

Who gets the fee?​

75% goes to the coin's beneficiary and 25% to the zk-pad protocol. There is no separate creator share. See fees.

Can the creator raise the fee later?​

No. The token admin can only lower it, never below 1%.

Do I pay the fee when I sell?​

Yes. F applies to buys and sells (the creator may set different values for each direction).

Safety​

Can the creator rug?​

The contracts give the creator no power to mint, tax, blacklist, pause or remove liquidity. The creator can still sell tokens they bought, like anyone else. See no-rug guarantees.

Can the protocol take the beneficiary's money?​

No admin function moves beneficiary balances. One caveat: the protocol owner configures the price bound of creator-triggered consolidations, so a malicious owner working with a launch's creator could make that launch's credited fees swap for almost nothing. Donations, other launches' fees and the beneficiary's own signed actions are out of reach. See trust assumptions.

Has it been audited?​

No. zk-pad is deployed on mainnet without an external audit. The upstream Clanker v4 contracts were audited by Cantina and Macro, but zk-pad's port is new code and has not had its own audit. See security.

Who controls the protocol contracts?​

A single externally owned account owns FeeVault, ZkPadFactory, QuoteRegistry and RailgunShieldAdapter. A move to a multisig is planned. No admin function moves beneficiary balances, but the owner can change configuration immediately. See trust assumptions.

Privacy​

Does zk-pad hide my trades?​

No. Trades are public like any DEX trade. zk-pad hides the beneficiary's wallet and identity.

If a coin is named after someone, is it really for them?​

Not necessarily, and it does not mean they endorse it. Anyone can name a coin anything. For social-account escrows, only the real account owner can claim, but they may never choose to.

Can a coin be launched for a social account today?​

No. Social-account beneficiaries cannot be launched or claimed until attestors and their salt service are live; the launch app shows them as "coming soon". A valid escrow needs an attestorSalt from the attestor salt service, and binding needs attestor signatures, and neither exists at launch. Do not create social-account escrows through the SDK or the contracts directly: an escrow whose commitment no attestor can reproduce can never be bound, and its funds could only leave through a fallback sweep (if it has a fallback recipient). See social-account escrows.

Who knows who the beneficiary is?​

For a private claim kit: the creator and whoever has the link. For a social escrow: the creator and each attestor of the committee (any one of them can decrypt the hint on its own). The chain only sees an opaque id. See what is and is not hidden.

Why does everything get converted to USDT?​

So that every beneficiary exits in the same asset, which gives the largest shared anonymity set in Railgun. See consolidation and shielding.

Why are my shielded funds "pending"?​

Railgun's Private Proofs of Innocence put every new shield on standby for about 1 hour.

Railgun is not sanctioned and markets PPOI as its compliance layer. Laws differ by country; this is not legal advice. See the risk disclosure.

Beneficiaries​

Do I need BNB to claim?​

No. Relayers pay the gas and take a fee from the amount you claim; other actions (consolidate, rotate, ping, templates) pay them the same way, from your balance. The one exception is a coin launched with fees kept in the coin itself (FeeIn.Both or Token): relayers cannot price that balance and it cannot be consolidated, so claiming it needs a wallet with BNB for gas.

No. Nobody can. If a fallback was set, the funds go to the fallback after the inactivity period. For social escrows, you can rebind once attestors are registered.

What happens if I never claim?​

If the creator set a fallback recipient, anyone can sweep the balance there after at least 180 days without activity from you. Otherwise the balance stays in the vault.