Privacy & On-Chain Visibility
What is visible on-chain?
Minimal on-chain data is publicly visible. All you’ll ever see in the entire Incognito system are four types of on-chain activity:
Wallets interacting with the Private Send dApp to send $INC: That’s it, just interacting. You’ll see that a wallet made a transaction at a certain time, but not where it went or how much was sent. On Etherscan, it shows up as a generic contract call, identical to thousands of others. There's no readable destination, visible transfer value, or linkable trail.
Uniswap buys and sells: These are public and visible like any standard DEX transaction on Ethereum.
Gasless Swaps : Otherwise known as the ‘resurfacing’ of wallets that got sent $INC, suddenly appearing and requesting ETH from the Gasless Swap dApp.
Decryption transactions: These reveal your private balance and make it publicly visible again.
None of these actions can be correlated on-chain. Each occurs independently, with encrypted data at the contract level and no off-chain privacy layers to reverse-engineer.
What transaction data does Incognito store when doing a private send?
Incognito stores nothing. There are no off-chain logs, databases, trackers, or relayers. Every interaction is recorded as a standard Ethereum contract call, but the recipient and amount are encrypted and unreadable.
Only the wallet key-holder can decrypt and see the real data. To help users track or complete a transaction, the dApp displays recent activity locally in the browser. This data is not stored on any server or on-chain and can be deleted at any time.
Can someone analyse my private send or estimate amounts based on what I bought?
No. This is called a balance attack and it doesn’t work with Incognito. Let’s say Wallet A buys 100 $INC on Uniswap. That’s visible. Then it sends 77 $INC privately to Wallet B. After that:
Wallet A’s full balance becomes encrypted — not just the amount sent.
Wallet B holds a private balance — not publicly viewable.
There’s no way to link the send, no values to compare, no visible transfer.
Even if Wallet B later swaps exactly 77 $INC using Gasless Swap, it doesn’t reveal any linkable transaction data. There are no observable patterns between wallets or amounts.
You can’t run a table or chart to match input/output behavior. That said, it’s advised not to mirror exact amounts from a visible buy, just to avoid drawing attention.
Best practice is to break it up, send to yourself or round amounts to reduce recognizability, even if transactions are not publicly correlated.
Any tips to stay as private as possible?
These habits help ensure you're not just private on-chain, but off-chain too:
Use a VPN when interacting with any frontend.
Avoid reusing wallets — create a new address for receiving or selling.
Don't decrypt unless you need to — the longer your balance stays encrypted, the less exposure.
Send to yourself — even if you’re not moving funds to someone else, sending to a new wallet breaks any perceived wallet-to-wallet trail.
Remember your private balance — write it down or rename your wallet as a reminder. If you forget it, you need it decrypted.
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