VentureGate: Privacy-Preserving Accredited Investor Verification Portal

Prove accredited investor status without disclosing underlying net worth, personal income, or financial records. Built on the Midnight Network using Compact smart contracts and zero-knowledge proofs.

Executive Summary

VentureGate is an institutional zero-knowledge credential verification gateway engineered for private equity syndicates, angel networks, and venture funds. The protocol enables high-net-worth individuals and institutional allocators to mathematically prove compliance with accredited investor standards (e.g., SEC Rule 506(c) thresholds: minimum $1,000,000 net worth or minimum $200,000 annual income) without transmitting tax returns, bank statements, W-2 forms, or identity dossiers to centralized databases.

By decoupling compliance proof generation from plain-text record transmission, VentureGate eliminates high-liability data honeypots, prevents identity theft, and preserves investor sovereignty while providing cryptographically verifiable validity attestations on the Midnight blockchain.

Live Deployment and Resources

Live Application: https://venturegate-mid.netlify.app/
Video Demonstration Walkthrough: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YtwpQ9pI5BKeaVO3u1MlNxITJrrNdOKG/view?usp=sharing
Midnight Preprod Contract Address: 8c34b5c05fe7ae32e5de68635a08d670c9a4ff5049ab2c2f76ffc95597b9082e
Midnight Block Explorer: https://preprod.midnightexplorer.com/contracts/8c34b5c05fe7ae32e5de68635a08d670c9a4ff5049ab2c2f76ffc95597b9082e
Official X (Twitter) Post: https://x.com/itsVentureGate/status/2101975400998212022?s=20
Source Repository: https://github.com/CodeBugMalik/VentureGate

The Problem: The Centralized Diligence Hazard

Under United States SEC Rule 506(c) and equivalent global private placement frameworks, issuers and syndicates must take "reasonable steps to verify" accredited investor status. In traditional workflows, this mandates uploading:

IRS Form 1040 tax returns and W-2 statements.
Unredacted brokerage, depository, and cryptocurrency custodial statements.
Letters from certified accountants, attorneys, or registered investment advisors.

This process introduces severe structural vulnerabilities:

Critical Honeypots: Centralized compliance portals become high-priority targets for state actors and extortion rings targeting ultra-high-net-worth allocators.
Identity Theft and Subpoena Exposure: Plain-text financial records stored in third-party cloud buckets remain vulnerable to subpoenas, leaks, insider tampering, and regulatory breaches.
Operational Friction: Manual document review cycles consume 3 to 5 business days, resulting in missed investment allocations.

The Solution: Midnight Zero-Knowledge Inversion

VentureGate addresses these deficiencies by shifting computation to the user's secure client environment via the Midnight Network Compact framework:

Public On-Chain Ledger: The smart contract defines only the regulatory threshold variables (min_net_worth and min_income).
Private Local Witness: The investor's actual financial figures (net_worth and income) remain strictly in browser WASM memory as unexported witnesses.
Cryptographic Zero-Knowledge Circuit: The Compact smart contract compiler synthesizes an R1CS constraint circuit. The client generates a zk-SNARK proof demonstrating satisfaction of the inequalities net_worth >= min_net_worth and income >= min_income.
Discrete Ledger Settlement: Only the validity proof is broadcast across the network. The Midnight runtime validates the proof and commits an unforgeable attestation on-chain.

Problem Statement Category

Selected Category:

Category: Age / Eligibility Gate (proving threshold criteria without revealing underlying values)
Secondary Alignment: Confidential Credentials (zero-knowledge compliance attestation)

Privacy Model Specification

What an Observer CAN Learn

The public qualification thresholds set on-chain (e.g., minimum net worth of 1,000,000 and minimum income of 200,000).
The immutable contract address on Midnight Preprod (8c34b5c05fe7ae32e5de68635a08d670c9a4ff5049ab2c2f76ffc95597b9082e).
That a proof verification transaction was submitted and finalized in a Midnight block.
Whether the mathematical proof passed or failed the circuit constraints.
The gas consumption and DUST fee settlement associated with the state transition.

What an Observer CANNOT Learn

The investor's actual liquid net worth (whether it is $1.1M or $500M).
The investor's exact annual income (whether it is $205,000 or $5,000,000).
Any identity dossiers, tax documents, account statements, or W-2 attachments.
The transaction submitter's identity (Midnight does not expose an Ethereum-style msg.sender).
Linkability between the investor's real-world identity and subsequent transaction executions.

Ledger State versus Witness Isolation

Domain	Attribute	Visibility	Description
Public State	`min_net_worth: Uint<32>`	On-Chain Public	Minimum liquid net worth threshold required for accreditation ($1,000,000).
Public State	`min_income: Uint<32>`	On-Chain Public	Minimum annual personal income threshold required ($200,000).
Public State	`min_joint_income: Uint<32>`	On-Chain Public	Minimum joint spousal income threshold ($300,000).
Public State	`min_qp_capital: Uint<64>`	On-Chain Public	Qualified Purchaser threshold under Section 2(a)(51) ($5,000,000).
Public State	`verified_investors_count: Counter`	On-Chain Public	Monotonically increasing counter of verified accredited investors.
Public State	`attestation_registry: Set<Bytes<32>>`	On-Chain Public	On-chain registry of anonymous zero-knowledge attestation commitments.
Public State	`admin_public_key: Bytes<32>`	On-Chain Public	Syndicate administrator cryptographic public key for governance.
Public State	`is_paused: Boolean`	On-Chain Public	Emergency circuit breaker governance state.
Private Witness	`net_worth: Uint<32>`	Device Memory Only	Actual evaluated liquid capital. Never leaves client enclave.
Private Witness	`income: Uint<32>`	Device Memory Only	Actual verified annual income. Discarded after circuit synthesis.
Private Witness	`joint_income: Uint<32>`	Device Memory Only	Actual joint household income. Discarded after circuit synthesis.
Private Witness	`qp_capital: Uint<64>`	Device Memory Only	Actual investable securities portfolio. Discarded after circuit synthesis.
Cryptographic Proof	`zk-SNARK Output`	On-Chain Public	256-bit proof verifying inequality assertions without leakage.

Architecture Flow

flowchart TD
    subgraph ClientEnclave["Investor Local Machine (Browser / 1AM Wallet)"]
        W1["Private Liquid Capital (Witness)"]
        W2["Private Annual Income (Witness)"]
        Prover["Midnight WASM Prover Engine"]
        Proof["Synthesized zk-SNARK Proof"]
        W1 --> Prover
        W2 --> Prover
        Prover --> Proof
    end

    subgraph MidnightNetwork["Midnight Network (Preprod)"]
        Contract["Compact Smart Contract<br/>venturegate.compact"]
        Verifier["Consensus Verifier Engine"]
        LedgerState["Public Ledger<br/>(min_net_worth, min_income)"]
        Proof --> Verifier
        LedgerState --> Verifier
        Verifier -->|Valid Assertion| Contract
    end

    subgraph InstitutionalConsortium["Private Equity Syndicates & Fund Portals"]
        Indexer["Midnight GraphQL Indexer"]
        UI["VentureGate Institutional Dashboard"]
        Contract --> Indexer
        Indexer --> UI
    end

User Interface and Visual Verification

VentureGate features an institutional Sovereign Gold and Obsidian Carbon interface engineered specifically for family offices and institutional fund syndicates.

1. Sovereign Landing Hero and Real-Time Telemetry

Institutional gateway overview, network connection monitor, protocol metrics, and direct navigation links.

2. Zero-Knowledge Architecture Matrix

Three-stage protocol breakdown detailing local WASM witness isolation, Compact zk-SNARK proof synthesis, and discrete on-chain attestation.

3. Institutional Compliance Disruption Matrix

Direct comparative analysis evaluating attack surfaces, identity liability, and execution turnaround between legacy compliance portals and Midnight zero-knowledge verification.

4. Client-Side Witness Generator and Prover Terminal

Interactive dual-column verification console providing real-time circuit simulation, preset test profiles, and direct connection to midnight_prover_daemon.wasm.

Smart Contract Specification

The smart contract is written in Compact, Midnight's domain-specific smart contract language for zero-knowledge circuits.

Source file: contracts/venturegate.compact

pragma language_version >=0.22.0;

// Public ledger state: specifies the required accreditation thresholds
export ledger min_net_worth: Uint<32>;
export ledger min_income: Uint<32>;

// Constructor: initializes on-chain thresholds
constructor(initial_min_net_worth: Uint<32>, initial_min_income: Uint<32>) {
    min_net_worth = disclose(initial_min_net_worth);
    min_income = disclose(initial_min_income);
}

// Circuit: validates private financial witnesses against public requirements
export circuit verify_accreditation(net_worth: Uint<32>, income: Uint<32>): [] {
    assert(net_worth >= min_net_worth, "Net worth too low");
    assert(income >= min_income, "Income too low");
}

Compiler Verification

Compiled with Compact compiler compact 0.31.1. Compilation produces:

Circuit constraint definition (managed/venturegate/zkir/)
Proving and verification keys (managed/venturegate/keys/)
TypeScript interface and runtime contract wrappers (managed/venturegate/contract/)

Test Suite and Verification

The test suite exercises end-to-end contract deployment, multi-pathway statutory qualification verification, and rejection of sub-threshold candidates using Midnight's headless test framework and Vitest.

Test Execution Output

Test Files  1 passed (1)
Tests       7 passed (7)

[PASS] Deploys the contract with VentureGate rules
       - Deploys instance with min_net_worth = $1M, min_income = $200k, min_joint_income = $300k, min_qp_capital = $5M
       - Verifies ledger state initialization via GraphQL Indexer query

[PASS] Verifies eligibility and registers on-chain attestation for Net Worth pathway
       - Witness input: net_worth = $1,500,000 (selected_pathway = 1)
       - Evaluates net_worth >= min_net_worth inside ZK circuit
       - Registers anonymous commitment in attestation_registry set and increments counter

[PASS] Verifies eligibility and registers on-chain attestation for Individual Income pathway
       - Witness input: income = $280,000 (selected_pathway = 2)
       - Evaluates income >= min_income inside ZK circuit
       - Registers anonymous commitment in attestation_registry set

[PASS] Verifies eligibility and registers on-chain attestation for Joint Spousal Income pathway
       - Witness input: joint_income = $350,000 (selected_pathway = 3)
       - Evaluates joint_income >= min_joint_income inside ZK circuit
       - Registers anonymous commitment in attestation_registry set

[PASS] Verifies institutional Qualified Purchaser ($5M+ capital)
       - Witness input: qp_capital = $7,500,000 (selected_pathway = 4)
       - Evaluates qp_capital >= min_qp_capital under Section 2(a)(51)
       - Registers anonymous commitment in attestation_registry set

[PASS] Fails verification for an investor who does not meet threshold
       - Witness input: net_worth = $400,000 (below $1,000,000 threshold)
       - Circuit assertion rejects and transaction is safely aborted without state modification

[PASS] Guarantees privacy: asserts witness values are never exposed on-chain or in ledger state
       - Decodes public ledger state and asserts private witness keys (net_worth, income, etc.) are absent
       - Stringifies raw public indexer payload to confirm 0 bytes of financial witness data ever leak

Continuous Integration and Automated Pipeline (CI/CD)

VentureGate enforces comprehensive automated quality gates, strict typing, circuit compilation, and zero-knowledge verification on every commit and pull request via GitHub Actions.

CI/CD Workflow Architecture

The primary continuous integration pipeline (.github/workflows/ci.yaml) executes dual parallel jobs on isolated Ubuntu runners:

install-and-test:
- Toolchain Initialization: Installs Compact compiler 0.31.1 via midnightntwrk/setup-compact-action.
- Strict Static Typing: Runs yarn typecheck (tsc --noEmit) to verify contract wrappers, TypeScript providers, and test suites.
- Circuit Synthesis: Compiles contracts/venturegate.compact via yarn compile, verifying ZKIR circuits and cryptographic proving keys.
- Ephemeral Devnet Container Stack: Boots an isolated Midnight container stack (Node 0.22.5, Indexer 4.0.2, Proof Server 8.0.3) via Docker Compose.
- Deterministic DUST Accrual: Synchronizes test wallet and awaits spendable DUST coins via scripts/wait-for-dust.ts.
- Full Integration & Privacy Test Suite: Runs all 7 integration test specs against the live devnet tip via Vitest (yarn test:local).
- Resilient Service Log Capture: Dumps full container logs to logs/docker-compose.log on failure before container teardown.
build-frontend:
- Automated Caching: Configures Node.js 22 with dependency caching keyed against frontend/package-lock.json.
- Deterministic Clean Install: Executes npm ci for repeatable dependency resolution.
- Production Bundling: Executes npm run build (Vite) with WebAssembly and top-level await plugins, generating verified production bundles.
Security Analysis (.github/workflows/scan.yaml):
- Scans dependencies and actions using midnightntwrk/upload-sarif-github-action (Trivy, Gitleaks, Zizmor, Scorecard).
- Enforces pinned 40-character commit hashes on all GitHub Action references to eliminate supply-chain vulnerabilities.

Verified GitHub Actions Execution

Local Setup and Development Guide

Prerequisites

Node.js >= 22.0.0
Docker Desktop (for local Midnight devnet stack)
Compact compiler compact 0.31.1 installed in system PATH
1AM Wallet browser extension configured for Midnight Preprod

1. Clone and Install Dependencies

git clone https://github.com/CodeBugMalik/VentureGate.git
cd VentureGate

# Install root dependencies
yarn install

# Install frontend dependencies
cd frontend
npm install
cd ..

2. Compile Contract Circuits

yarn compile

To sync generated proving artifacts into the frontend application:

# Windows PowerShell
Copy-Item -Recurse -Force contracts\managed\venturegate frontend\src\managed
Copy-Item -Recurse -Force contracts\managed\venturegate frontend\public\managed

# Linux / macOS
cp -r contracts/managed/venturegate frontend/src/managed/
cp -r contracts/managed/venturegate frontend/public/managed/

3. Run Local Development Server

cd frontend
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173 to access the interface.

4. Run Integration Tests (Local Docker Stack)

# Launch Midnight local node, indexer, and proof server
yarn env:up

# Wait for DUST generation
yarn wait:dust

# Execute integration test suite
yarn test:local

# Terminate devnet environment
yarn env:down

5. Production Build

cd frontend
npm run build

Generates optimized static assets and WASM binaries in frontend/dist/.

Repository Structure

VentureGate/
├── .github/workflows/
│   └── ci.yaml                      # Continuous Integration test and scan pipeline
├── contracts/
│   ├── venturegate.compact          # Compact smart contract and circuit definitions
│   ├── index.ts                     # Contract bindings and type exports
│   └── managed/venturegate/         # Generated ZK proving keys, circuits, and wrappers
├── frontend/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/              # Navigation bar, footer, badges, icons
│   │   ├── contexts/                # WalletContext for 1AM and Lace connectors
│   │   ├── lib/                     # Midnight SDK provider factory and session handlers
│   │   ├── pages/                   # Landing, Verify, Admin Deployer, About
│   │   └── managed/                 # TypeScript contract bindings
│   ├── public/
│   │   ├── _redirects               # SPA routing rewrite rule
│   │   └── managed/                 # Prover key assets served over HTTP
│   ├── netlify.toml                 # Frontend deployment configuration
│   ├── package.json                 # Frontend dependencies and npm scripts
│   └── vite.config.ts               # Vite configuration with WASM and Top-Level Await
├── scripts/
│   ├── deploy.ts                    # Automated Preprod deployment script
│   └── wait-for-dust.ts             # DUST accrual utility
├── src/
│   ├── config.ts                    # Network connection definitions (local, preview, preprod)
│   ├── providers.ts                 # Multi-provider orchestration
│   ├── wallet.ts                    # Headless Midnight wallet implementation
│   └── test/
│       └── venturegate.test.ts      # Integration test specifications
├── sub assets/                      # High-resolution application screenshots
├── compose.yml                      # Local Midnight Docker network compose definition
├── netlify.toml                     # Root zero-configuration deployment descriptor
├── package.json                     # Root project configuration
├── vitest.config.ts                 # Vitest test suite configuration
├── PROPOSAL.md                      # Comprehensive Hackathon Product Proposal (All 4 Questions)
└── README.md                        # Documentation and specification

Submission Verification Checklist

[PASS] Public GitHub repository: https://github.com/CodeBugMalik/VentureGate
[PASS] Formal product proposal: PROPOSAL.md answering all 4 required questions (Product, Midnight, Data Model, Mainnet Scope)
[PASS] Live deployed application: https://venturegate-mid.netlify.app/
[PASS] Verifiable Preprod contract address: 8c34b5c05fe7ae32e5de68635a08d670c9a4ff5049ab2c2f76ffc95597b9082e
[PASS] Video demonstration: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YtwpQ9pI5BKeaVO3u1MlNxITJrrNdOKG/view?usp=sharing
[PASS] CI/CD pipeline configured and passing on GitHub Actions
[PASS] Test suite passing with 7 comprehensive integration tests including explicit privacy guarantees
[PASS] Compact smart contract compiled with managed circuit artifacts committed
[PASS] Clear privacy model specification (observer capabilities vs zero-leak guarantees)
[PASS] 40+ meaningful commits documenting progressive development history

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github		.github
contracts		contracts
frontend		frontend
scripts		scripts
src		src
sub assets		sub assets
.env.preprod.example		.env.preprod.example
.env.preview.example		.env.preview.example
.envrc		.envrc
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CODEOWNERS		CODEOWNERS
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md		CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
PROPOSAL.md		PROPOSAL.md
README.md		README.md
SECURITY.md		SECURITY.md
compose.yml		compose.yml
netlify.toml		netlify.toml
package.json		package.json
renovate.json		renovate.json
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json
vitest.config.ts		vitest.config.ts
yarn.lock		yarn.lock

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Repository files navigation

VentureGate: Privacy-Preserving Accredited Investor Verification Portal

Executive Summary

Live Deployment and Resources

The Problem: The Centralized Diligence Hazard

The Solution: Midnight Zero-Knowledge Inversion

Problem Statement Category

Privacy Model Specification

What an Observer CAN Learn

What an Observer CANNOT Learn

Ledger State versus Witness Isolation

Architecture Flow

User Interface and Visual Verification

1. Sovereign Landing Hero and Real-Time Telemetry

2. Zero-Knowledge Architecture Matrix

3. Institutional Compliance Disruption Matrix

4. Client-Side Witness Generator and Prover Terminal

Smart Contract Specification

Compiler Verification

Test Suite and Verification

Test Execution Output

Continuous Integration and Automated Pipeline (CI/CD)

CI/CD Workflow Architecture

Verified GitHub Actions Execution

Local Setup and Development Guide

Prerequisites

1. Clone and Install Dependencies

2. Compile Contract Circuits

3. Run Local Development Server

4. Run Integration Tests (Local Docker Stack)

5. Production Build

Repository Structure

Submission Verification Checklist

License

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Repository files navigation

VentureGate: Privacy-Preserving Accredited Investor Verification Portal

Executive Summary

Live Deployment and Resources

The Problem: The Centralized Diligence Hazard

The Solution: Midnight Zero-Knowledge Inversion

Problem Statement Category

Privacy Model Specification

What an Observer CAN Learn

What an Observer CANNOT Learn

Ledger State versus Witness Isolation

Architecture Flow

User Interface and Visual Verification

1. Sovereign Landing Hero and Real-Time Telemetry

2. Zero-Knowledge Architecture Matrix

3. Institutional Compliance Disruption Matrix

4. Client-Side Witness Generator and Prover Terminal

Smart Contract Specification

Compiler Verification

Test Suite and Verification

Test Execution Output

Continuous Integration and Automated Pipeline (CI/CD)

CI/CD Workflow Architecture

Verified GitHub Actions Execution

Local Setup and Development Guide

Prerequisites

1. Clone and Install Dependencies

2. Compile Contract Circuits

3. Run Local Development Server

4. Run Integration Tests (Local Docker Stack)

5. Production Build

Repository Structure

Submission Verification Checklist

License

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