Backrooms

A Backroom is a voice room with the host's identity hidden. The opener proves anonymous-set membership with a Groth16 BN254 zero-knowledge proof before the room opens. Listeners join under masked call signs derived from the nullifier. The host knows they are the host but no one watching the chain can link the opener back to their wallet.

Pipoke runs on Octra Devnet today. Any fee, price, or limit referred to here is a contract setting chosen for testing. Every one is owner-settable, and mainnet values will be different. These docs describe how the mechanics work, not what the numbers are.

#How the opener stays anonymous

You hold an anon commitment registered on PipokeAnonReputationRoots.
To open a backroom, you build a Groth16 BN254 proof that you are a member of the current commitment set, without revealing which member.
The proof produces a nullifier scoped to "backroom-open + this epoch."
You submit the proof + the nullifier to PipokeRooms.open_backroom. The contract calls groth16_verify_bn254 and rejects if the proof is invalid or the nullifier has already been used.

#How listeners stay anonymous

Listeners do not need to be in the anon set to join. They join as listeners under temporary call signs derived from the room's nullifier. The chain does not record who joined.

#Speaker model

Backrooms inherit the 5-speaker cap and the hand-raise model from community rooms. The host promotes a listener to speaker. Speakers also use anon call signs.

#Audio only

Backrooms are audio-only. No video, no screen share, no chat overlay. The minimum surface to host a conversation without identity leaks.

#Recording

Backrooms are never recorded. There is no VOD seal step. The whole point is the conversation happens, and then it is gone.

#Idle close

A backroom that goes idle (0 listeners and 0 speakers) is closed automatically after an idle window. A hard ceiling closes long-running backrooms after a separate cap.

#When to use a Backroom vs a Community Room

Use a community room when the conversation belongs in a community and the participants are happy to be linked to their handles.

Use a backroom when the conversation needs the host's identity to stay separate from their wallet (whistleblowing, sensitive topics, anonymous group calls).