# BeYou: Privacy Preserving Social Platform

- Channel: [ETHCluj Meetup](https://streameth.org/ethcluj-meetup)
- Date: 2026-03-09
- Duration: 45:27
- Topics: ethcluj, ethereum, privacy, social privacy preserving platform, zero-knowledge proofs, zk proofs, zk technology, authentic, hackathon, voting, dev, protocol, web4, blockchain, social platform
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-mvaeqzUYLVA
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvaeqzUYLVA

## Description

In this session founder Akhil Nanavati presents his project BeYou - a privacy-first platform that empowers verified communities to communicate and share honest feedback without compromising identity.

​Built on secure anonymous signaling principles, BeYou enables groups such as hackathon cohorts and residency programs or professional networks and decentralized communities to create trusted spaces where members can vote, propose ideas, and signal preferences anonymously while still ensuring that every participant is authentic and verified through secure email verification using zero-knowledge proofs.

## Transcript

Right. Hi everyone. Uh welcome to today's session. Uh basically the first session of the year of our series of Ethereum think tank. This is actually uh to say the least our fifth session. Uh and we're going to continue in uh doing some more of this initiative. Uh our think tank series is basically a series of online or in real life meetups uh that we're putting together in order to support founders that are willing to come forward and present uh who are willing to come forward and present their projects, their ideas and get some feedback and discussions going around uh their projects. Uh for today we have Akil who is going to uh present his project BEu which is a privacy preserving social platform and uh we're very happy to have you here with us Sakil. So just to say a few words and then I'm going to pass on the mic to you. Uh as far as I've understood talking to you this uh idea sparked up during after a NET global hackathon if I'm not mistaken. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. And >> yeah, the East India hackathon 284. Yes. >> Nice. Nice. That's uh that's always good to see like ideas coming during hackathons, right? And then you know following up on those ideas and projects as well. That's really good. >> Yeah. And what I really liked about your project um is the ethical alignment and if you will like uh that is focused around something which is quite important and very much of a focus uh should be a focus for this year privacy given all the you know overall context. Um so yeah basically BEu is built on secure anonymous um signaling principles right and enables groups such as for example hackathon cohorts and residency programs or professional networks or if you have decentralized communities uh to create uh trusted space where members can vote propose ideas and signal preferences anonymously uh while ensuring that every particip participant is authentic and verified uh through zero knowledge proofs which is something we're very excited to hear about from Akil before I pass on the mic just wanted to say that today's session is as you know part of our road to eat cluge initiative and what this means is that uh at the end of the session or during the session uh we're going to share a pop-up uh proof of attendance uh NFT that um you'll be able to scan and collect. This comes with a 25% discount for our conference tickets this year and you can uh stack for poabs and get one free ticket for the conference. All right, Akil, you have the mic uh and I'm just going to mute myself and at the end of the session, we can after a presentation, we can go ahead and you know give some feedback, ask some questions and just start like a discussion. All right. Thank you so much. You have the mic. >> Yeah. Uh so hi everyone. I am Akil. Uh thank you so much for inviting me and giving me this chance. So I'm a fullstack developer. I have been in the space from the past roughly two two and a half years. I've been attending events, attending hackathons, building projects, winning some of the hackathons as well. So yeah, this was this idea sparked me in the like in a hackathon itself. So I thought that I should build something out of it. So uh let me just share my screen and everyone can view that. I hope uh my screen is Yeah. So this is what I am presenting. So this is BU. So what is BU? So like VU is a space where you can uh like uh talk uh or maybe send anonymous signals like maybe feedbacks, votes or uh something like that uh in specific trusted communities that you can create uh like uh and your identity is anonymous. So like you verify that you are a part of the community but you don't have to reveal your uh reveal your credentials that your name is this or something like that. You just need to maybe prove something that you have this or you have this much uh and then you can be a part of the community and then you can like uh do all the anonymous signaling. So the main question is that why did I decide to build this? So uh there have been multiple uh cases uh like the where people who speak against someone or people who stand for their rights then they uh their identity is public uh in the social space right now but then they face some repercussions. uh so that is not good like everyone has their right and everyone has to speak against injustice or something but uh you don't get a safe space like uh people can find you and maybe do harm to you or your family so uh as I said that social media is like it is the best place to speak uh about wrongdoings but what if it comes at the cost of your life uh you have your freedom of speech so it should be that you have the have it and you are not afraid to use it. So yeah, so it enables like anonymous communication where you can create groups or communities based on your interests. So let's say you want to create a community of maybe uh people who attend any conference, people who are part of any country, people who uh spec uh who fulfill this criteria or people who have attended a specific event and then in that group uh you can send anonymous signals, anonymous votes, anonymous feedbacks etc. So you can get authentic feedback, you can speak the truth without any fear as your identity is anonymous and no one can know that who has spoken what they will know that these many comments are there but not that who has done who has said what. Uh so uh this is all powered by SE 4 ZK mail and group solutions and it is all verified on ZK verify. Uh so let's get into the demo. Uh so as you can see that it is anonymous signaling for verified communities. Uh so here you can start by creating a group. So maybe you name a group like eat glue or something. Uh and then you give the description and here you right now it is uh powered by ZK mail. So let's say if you have received an email of a specific event that you hold this ticket that this is your valid ticket then you can create a blueprint on ZKL and put that here and then create a group. Uh right now I have some groups already created. So let me show you the demo that. So this is of a hacker house that I had participated in. So I will upload the EML file of that hacker house that uh the hacker house sent me an email that yes you are in. So I will put that and then I will join the group. So a semaphore anonymous ID will be created and then uh like it will take some time to generate the ZK proof that is it is a bit slower but yeah hopefully this year everything gets faster. So once the proof is generated and verified so as you can see that uh it is submitted and it will verify. Uh so once it is verified then you are a part of the group and then you can send anonymous signals. Uh so maybe some posts, some feedback, some votes, you can create some proposals and something like that. So we wait for the proof to be verified. This is not in my hands but yes. Yeah. So as you can see the proof has been generated and you can check in your group that you are a part of the group. Then here you can uh make some post. So let me say hey uh this is just for testing. This also this is also verified on J that you have made some action. So let's wait for that as well. Yeah as you can see the job status has been submitted. So it will take a couple of seconds until it gets successfully included. Yeah. So as you can see the proof has been verified and you can see that what we posted now this is the date and you can also create proposals right now. So let's say let's let me just uh write gluj and cluge meetup and then you can create a proposal and you can like cast your vote let's say yes or no. This can be are you attending ETH cluge or not something like that and then you cast your vote. So uh all this is powered by semaphore and zk verify. So yeah uh and in the future as well I'm planning to integrate uh some identity solutions like maybe uh that you can create a group uh based on your nationality based on your age. So let's say if you want to create a group of people. So as you can see the proof has been verified and your vote has been cast here. You can't double vote here as you have already voted. Uh so in the future you can create groups uh based on nationality, age or gender or maybe uh people participating in an event. So let's say DevCon is coming up. So if you have a devcon ticket then only you can uh come into the group and cast your feedback um uh that uh and then in the future maybe uh something like you hold x number of tokens then only you can enter the group or something like that. So yeah, that was the demo and I would uh be happy to answer any questions and also some feedback on like I know that people do care about privacy but then when I present the project then they ask me that how will you monetize it? How will you bring more people in uh apart from privacy? What is the selling point of the app? So maybe if you guys uh I you are more experienced than me have much knowledge more uh than me so maybe you can help me there as well. So yeah that's it. uh with the demo. Uh I'm open to questions if you can. Yeah, if you have any >> uh did you already so I understand that this is now an MVP or not? >> Yes. Yes, it is. It is it is >> all right. Um, so, uh, I'm not sure if I got it from your presentation or but what would prevent a verified user from creating like multiple anonymous identities? >> Uh, no, you can uh like when you uh it is in the app itself that you can only get one identity. So, it is all taken care by the semaphore protocol itself. So for the app whole app you have one identity and it is just random uh number. >> Okay. Can you walk us through a little bit like how did you did you think about the monetization part? It's obviously a question that you've received several times and I think it would be good whether you would have explored already a little bit of uh and maybe you can put up the last slide that you had with uh >> Yeah, sure. Uh yeah so with the moni >> with the monetization thing I thought that uh maybe I'll charge some money after I have some users. So let's say I give some users let's say if you can create five groups and after that you need to pay some subscription fee model or something or maybe per group P type model also. So let's say once you have exhausted your limit of five groups then after that for creating another five another 10 you need to pay per group or maybe a monthly subscription service or something like that. >> Okay. So the acquisition would be like going towards you know like uh persons that really care about privacy and care about bringing their community or their their groups. it's going to be small groups in the beginning I assume right from judging from what saying u that they care in bringing their groups over to the social platform I guess a lot of like investors or people who would be interested in adopting this would ask like whether this is scalable or not >> yeah uh it is definitely scalable but yeah uh first like I'll have to uh test it with small communities maybe to test with some uh uh like event organizers even uh like those who host hackathons or something like that and then maybe we can get feedback from them as well and then we can try that yeah I have this much of users this much this many people have used the app so yeah this is what it is I see um opening the floor for anybody uh who wants to ask more questions so that I'm not taking over the room >> uh yeah so I do have a question uh how do you prevent the misusage of the platform and I give an example from my uh from my field uh how do you prevent the platform to be used for by by the terrorists for example because >> in theory a terrorist group could create a personal group to raise funds right how do you prevent it >> yes uh yeah this is uh this is also a very valid question uh yeah so ABI I'll need to implement some uh some thing that uh like I maybe ban some verbs or uh something like that. But yeah, this is also as well. I'm not telling that this is all foolproof but yes uh something maybe uh like I ban some words or uh >> not necessarily words because they could simply raise for money in in the form of I don't know USDT no terrorist words whatsoever >> how do you prevent this because in traditional way we we have AML KYC right uh maybe you can think of in invest some time in um uh enforcing some rules regarding the counterterrorism funding and AML policies, you know, uh so you can have like a first triage of people that can misuse your platform. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Definitely. Yes. >> Yeah. That that was it. Uh thanks. >> Thank you for asking the question. like I I definitely have to give it a thought and implement some things. Yes. >> Would you like to explain? I'm not sure uh if everyone is I mean everyone is familiar with the concept of ZK proofs but I'm not really sure how much in depth everyone. So maybe you'd like to explain a little bit uh around this concept and how it's implemented in uh in BU. >> Yeah sure. Uh so basically like uh everyone um like zero noise proofs are something that lets you uh verify something that uh without revealing the parameters. So let's say if you want to uh like verify your age without showing your whole passport or any ID cards. Uh you can just uh have that specific detail of age. uh and then you can uh verify it. So all your data is not leaked only that thing that yes uh if there is a condition that uh whether a specific user is above the age of 18 so it is it is a boolean so it is a yes or a no. So if that person is uh above 18 then yes you get into the group or if a group is created like that way and if it is not uh then you don't get entry to the group. So uh the data your identities is not revealed. uh so basically uh I'll maybe simplify it further uh where uh whole of your data is not exposed only a certain part that yes you fulfill this condition and then only you can uh do some action uh and like this is uh with the help of like uh some ZK solutions by the privacy scaling team of Ethereum foundation it is semma zkmail so sema 4 lets you create This anonymous groups they power the anonymous ids and they let you verify the proofs on chain that yes something has happened uh like uh a a post or a feedback has been put but uh not by they no one knows that uh who it is put by it is just like uh something is there so like I put hey so yeah uh hey was posted by an anonymous person you can't trace back my identity and uh for right now I showed you the email demo. Uh so like ZK mail uh powers uh that uh so basically first you have to create a blueprint of that. So maybe like uh that I want users who have received this email only to enter the group. Uh so uh by their architecture uh first you need to create a blueprint and then they verify it again. So let's say I have an example A and if I put example A similar example that in emails it is like maybe a sender domain. Uh so let's say akil.com has sent this email and uh so there is I first in the blueprint there is this akil.com and then if I have a.com email received then uh uh that is matched and then it is verified that yes this is a valid person with a valid email. uh so he can enter the group and it is verified on chain so maybe I was uh it explained or I am open to questions as well like if you guys didn't understand >> okay uh anyone from the audience >> feel free to drop the questions in the chat as well if you don't want to say them out loud >> go ahead Hey Akil, uh nice interesting idea. Uh congrats for this. However, uh if your next goal is to build a product or find product market fit for it, maybe uh it would make sense to narrow it down to make to a specific use case because otherwise it seems my opinion it seems very generic and maybe users would have to do a great effort to actually understand how to use it. >> Okay. in their lives. So, so may maybe one idea would be to just to narrow down the the problem scope. I don't know to okay >> find a very specific use case and try to see how it works. Maybe something like let's say a platform for anonymous feedback. >> Okay. >> And uh that that makes sense. Technically it makes sense because you have to authorize the users. Not everyone can give feedback. And then you maybe people are shy and they don't want to give feedback after a lecture or after whatever hackathon and so on. Maybe they prefer to uh keep it anonymized. So it it's it's basically the same idea but you you you would just apply to very specific use cases and it will help >> I get actually okay at least users who uh are confront confronted with that problem to actually I don't know to find a use for it. >> Yeah. Yeah. So maybe like >> maybe not lots of others and you can test them in the market. Yes, yes, yes. I get it. Yeah. Thank you for the idea. Maybe Yeah. I uh focus on this one problem only and then see that whether the people are interested or not. Definitely. Yes. >> I see there's a question in the chat whether this is an alternative to Wikipedia or Wikileaks. Have you thought about it? >> Uh what alternative to >> to Wikipedia or Wikileaks? >> Uh no. like I haven't thought about this. >> Uh Yan, would you like to um like give a bit more context around uh your question? >> Yeah, I was thinking if you maybe you are trying to make a platform so the people can tell the truth something like that. But Wikipedia was also something like this. So people tell the truth and to avoid authorities being chasing them I think. >> Yeah. Uh so maybe something like uh are you saying the views or something like that? So for a specific maybe some shop or some thing that uh there are uh that I can use it as a review platform where only verified people can put their reviews out something like that. >> Yeah. Okay. Uh I was I was um curious on the main content of the platform is like big articles or just chat short replies for everybody. >> Yeah. Short things, short things, not big articles. >> Ah not big articles. Okay. Okay. Okay. But in Okay. Another question. Instead of anonymous anonymous anonymous, can they use a nickname? So tomorrow I will remember who I chatted yesterday with. Uh then like it is up to the user right then they like uh have an option maybe that if you want to create your username or not that if you want to be public or not. Uh right now it is like all anonymous but maybe in the future we can definitely do that that uh uh give people a choice to enter their username or something like that. Is it maybe easier if it's just like uh automatically generated uh usernames for example just conscious you know of of privacy aspects as well and I don't know because I'm thinking like yeah I mean it it's obviously I think it's a bit more simple and maybe easier to implement from the start uh I don't know just a thought >> yeah uh right now it is better uh if we give give the uh like random identities but uh in the future if I give an option of the uh username like I said uh then uh it will be up to the people that that can also be done some work around is always there for implementing that uh so then it is a choice of people whether they want to remain anonymous or not like maybe use any random nicknames also that is also fine it works. >> Do you feel like maybe this should be implemented from the start? So for example offer this opportunities similar to what Reddit does for like they create autogenerated username suggestions like usually mix of words and numbers and you can choose your own if it's available only because obviously there's availability problem as well right >> yes yes yes this can be done yes >> so do you think that you should implement it from the start maybe or just you know like down the line Uh yes uh like uh I can implement it like uh definitely uh right now it is uh like I said uh random but uh down the line in the like in the next few weeks or couple of weeks that can definitely be implemented. So in your opinion uh what would make like communities switch from like I don't know maybe even thinking like DAO what would make them adopt and switch to uh BEu uh as opposite to the current tools that they're using I mean there's obviously the privacy factor as well right which is quite strong but what about other factors I don't know trust and community engagement and so on. What do you consider this and what would those be? >> Yeah. Uh so in like uh DA forums and etc like uh there are lots and lots of people there are like random people as well who don't have any connection to it but they are just there to uh spread hate or something like that. uh like uh on Twitter also you can see that various people just comment that this protocol is not doing good this or that. So maybe uh all the companies at the house can use this to like uh uh get uh maybe create their restriction that uh if a user has met this condition so maybe uh then then only they can enter and then only they can give feedback. So it is uh like the companies also get some loyal users and they know that their user base is loyal and not some random people just uh typing anything or uh which is not beneficial for the company as well. So something like that. >> Yeah. But so okay so from a uh another like another question like from a privacy point of view obviously if you think of adoption and scaling social platform yeah needs communities and users so there's obviously going to be a lot of nontechnical users or people who don't know necessarily about zero knowledge proof. Have you thought about how you would communicate this uh and how you would surface uh the value of the zero knowledge verification? I mean honestly most of the people especially the ones who are I mean specifically the ones who are outside of web three are probably unaware of zero knowledge right so how do you think this would >> you reflect I mean for them right >> yes uh like first of all maybe uh the UIUX uh UX has to be improved a lot uh I like and then uh we need to create awareness as well that what is happening with your data. There are uh so many data leaks happening uh everything is out in the public like uh like scammers can use your data as well. So we need to create some awareness uh that you should protect your data your like uh every social media platform has our preferences as well and then we get to see ads on that. So that is also not good. So awareness is the thing that we need to focus on like I definitely know scaling a social platform is very tough. Uh why uh people would definitely ask that why would I use this? Uh what's what is the benefit in that? But then yeah awareness is the only thing that we can do. >> Yeah. >> And improve improve the UX as well. uh the flow of the whole uh joining putting everything that should be maybe uh quicker as well and uh yeah it should be in just one or two steps. >> Mhm. Okay. I see that Y has posted something in the chat like u that if the authorities will ask you for the identity of a user you really can give them any details. That's the base of uh Yeah, I let you take this one, but we know the answer to it, right? Akil, >> go ahead. >> Uh yeah, what is the question? >> It's in the chat. Like if the authorities will ask you for the identity of a user, you really can't give them any details. >> Yeah, I I I can't I can't give them. Yes, definitely not. >> That's the principle of implementing. Um >> yes, >> zero knowledge proofs. Okay. And for monetization you can accept that's a suggestion uh in the chat. I see for monetization you can accept maybe donations. >> Yes. Yeah. >> All right. Okay. Okay. Any more questions or suggestions? All right. Well, I guess at this point uh it's just like early stage and incipient. Um maybe maybe uh you know like take take note of some of the questions or feedback that you received and honestly I think it would be great to maybe even have another session once you develop a bit further and maybe add some uh more of the UX bits as well. going to be totally up to you. Um in the meantime, if nobody else has any questions then I'm going to say thank you so much Akil and um as I said for this session we have a poll up for everyone who's attending. So guys I'm going to uh share my screen if you don't mind stop sharing. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Cool. Uh so yeah as I said in the beginning of the session um this is this u meetup is part of road to eat cluj and we have a popup ready for you guys to scan and redeem 25% of um conference tickets. Bear with me as I scroll through my many tabs. Sorry for that. Okay. And all right. So, let me know uh when you can see the Okay. All right. Let's go. You're um you're able to see my screen and the pop-up QR code. >> Yes. Yes. >> So, guys, take a moment uh scan the po. Let me know if you've managed to to redeem it. You should have the PO app installed and uh please don't take a photo of the of the screen because the PO app refreshes in the background uh once you you scan it. So yeah, take a moment and scan the PO app and you know hope hopefully I'll see you to joining our next sessions. Actually maybe a good time to say this. We also have a in real life meetup next week on Saturday. We get together for coffee. That's on the February 21st. So hopefully I'm going to see some of you there. Uh the ones who are around Kuj or Romania that time, please don't be shy. Come and join us. Coffee is on us. And I'm really looking forward to to chatting with you guys. And hopefully you have some exciting ideas that maybe we can host in our think tank series or any other of the formats. We also have the online technical sessions and probably we're going to start doing more around community Twitter spaces, but don't quote me on that quite yet. We'll announce it as we go. For now, just keep an eye out on our Luma calendar. Uh we have already our calendar for the year and we keep on adding events as we go. Pretty much a lot of them will be now in anticipation to ETHL conference, but we're also going to follow up with some other cool workshop series, community events, and so forth. All right. Um hopefully you've all managed to scan by now. If you didn't, please uh drop me a message on our Telegram. And uh well, hope to see you guys soon. And thank you so much again, Akil. hope to host you again in our sessions whichever you feel like you might attend either as a speaker or as an attendee. Thank you. >> Thank you so much for having me at a great time. Thank you so much guys for listening >> and asking and questions and giving feedback as well. It means a lot. >> Hopefully it was useful. Thank you as well. Yes. Cheers. Cheers. Bye. >> Thanks so much everyone. Have a nice day or even >> take care.