Open vs Private: When to Use Each

Choose Standard Ghost Protocol when:

• Privacy is required — token transfers, confidential transactions
• Unlinkability matters — commit and reveal should not be traceable
• Tokens are involved — burn-and-mint operations for GHOST or GhostERC20 tokens

Choose Open Protocol when:

• Data provenance — you want to prove data existed at a certain time (timestamps via block inclusion)
• Public credentials — verifiable credentials that will be revealed publicly
• Persistent keys — encryption keys that need to be accessed repeatedly
• Sealed bids — commit to a value, then reveal it publicly after a deadline
• Attestations — on-chain attestations where the data is eventually public

Combining both protocols

You can use both protocols in the same application:

1. Use the Open Protocol to store a public commitment (e.g., a credential hash)
2. Use the Standard Ghost Protocol to privately transfer tokens as a reward for the credential
3. The two operations are on separate Merkle trees and don't interfere

Summary table

Feature	Standard	Open
Token operations	Yes (burn/mint)	No
Private reveals	Yes	No
Persistent access	No	Yes (access proofs)
Separate Merkle tree	CommitmentTree	OpenCommitmentTree
Privacy guarantees	Full unlinkability	Data integrity only