GhostPay: Confidential Institutional Payroll

Description

Overview GhostPay is a privacy-first, institutional-grade payroll infrastructure designed to solve the public salary problem in Web3. While blockchain offers transparency, it lacks the financial privacy required for professional payroll. GhostPay leverages iExec Nox and the ERC-7984 (Confidential Token) standard to allow employers to distribute salaries in bulk while keeping recipient addresses and amounts completely hidden from the public ledger. To enhance the institutional experience, GhostPay integrates a ChainGPT AI Assistant that provides real-time protocol insights and payroll optimization without ever compromising the underlying encrypted data. The Problem: Public Payouts In standard Web3 payroll (e.g., streaming or multisig transfers), every employee's salary and wallet address are visible on public explorers like Etherscan. This: Exposes sensitive corporate financial data. Compromises employee personal security and income privacy. Blocks institutional adoption of decentralized payroll systems. The GhostPay Solution iExec Nox Protocol Integration GhostPay utilizes the Nox Confidential Computing layer to process payments. Confidential Tokens (ERC-7984): Standard assets (USDC) are wrapped into confidential equivalents (cUSDC). Encrypted Transfers: Payouts are executed via the distributeConfidentialPayroll function using encrypted data types (euint256). TEE Security: The actual decryption and distribution logic occur within Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), ensuring no one, not even the validators or GhostPay developers, can see the plaintext values. ChainGPT AI Analytics We've integrated ChainGPT to act as a Confidential CFO. Privacy-Preserving Insights: The AI indexes protocol events (sanitized of sensitive data) to provide employers with high-level analytics on volume, burn rates, and historical trends. Natural Language Interface: Employers can query their payroll health using the GhostPay Chat Assistant. Professional Institutional UI A vibe-coded dashboard built for speed and aesthetics: Shadow Mode: Instant UI masking for screen sharing or public demonstrations. Bulk Dispatch: CSV-style input for rapid, confidential global distributions. Cryptographic Identity: Secure Settings module accessible only after verifying on-chain identity. Technical Architecture Core Stack Frontend: Vite, React 18, TypeScript, Phosphor Icons. Smart Contracts: Solidity (0.8.24+), Hardhat. Confidentiality: iExec Nox SDK, ERC-7984 Wrapper. AI Engine: ChainGPT Web3-LLM API. Network: Arbitrum Sepolia. Repository Structure /contracts: Solidity source code, Hardhat configuration, and deployment scripts. /frontend: The GhostPay professional dashboard (Vite/React). feedback.md: Our technical feedback on the iExec developer experience. Installation and Setup Prerequisites Node.js (v18+) Metamask (configured for Arbitrum Sepolia) ChainGPT API Key Smart Contracts cd contracts npm install Configure .env with PRIVATE_KEY and ARBITRUM_SEPOLIA_RPC npx hardhat compile npx hardhat run scripts/deploy.ts --network arbitrumSepolia Frontend cd frontend npm install Configure .env with VITE_GHOST_PAY_ADDRESS and VITE_CHAINGPT_API_KEY npm run dev Feedback We've documented our journey building with iExec Nox in feedback.md. We highlight the strengths of the ERC-7984 standard and provide suggestions for local TEE simulation tools. License GhostPay is open-source software licensed under the MIT License.