Six real world applications for Enigma — and how you can help us build

Hello from the Enigma team!

Today, rather than focusing on our rapid development in the present, we want to talk more about the decentralized future Enigma is building towards with our protocol. The question we hear most often from our community, especially newer members, is: “Why does the world need Enigma?” The short answer is — blockchains are powerful but broken, and we are fixing them. Our technology enables truly decentralized, secure applications by solving for privacy.

We’re about to explain more. But the longer answer involves another, more important question: “With Enigma, what can we build?” And here is where the excitement truly lies. We are facing the opportunity to completely reshape dozens of industries, each with tens or hundreds of billions of dollars of unlockable value, if we can solve the two major issues of blockchains: scalability and privacy.

In this important post, we’ll explain six of these opportunities. Importantly, we are already exploring each of these opportunities with potential partners. For each opportunity, we’ll explain how the Enigma protocol is necessary to build the decentralized future.

We’ll close with a call to action for those looking to build the decentralized future with us. We are making resources available for projects who are looking to build on the Enigma protocol — so please read to the very end to find out more.

Beating the Barriers to Blockchain

Before we talk about our promise, let’s start in our present — looking at the reality of blockchains. Blockchains are a powerful technology, but today they are impractical and mostly unusable at scale. Currently computing capacity on blockchain is slow and it is expensive. In addition, on-chain data is visible to everyone. As a result, most data must still be stored off-chain in centralized databases. This means that “decentralized applications” are either not truly decentralized, or they cannot scale and cannot use any sensitive data, seriously limiting their utility.

This lack of privacy is a substantial barrier to widespread adoption by Fortune 500 companies. If companies cannot protect their data and trade secrets, they will not adopt blockchain technology. As a result, a critical component to the success of the “smart economy” and blockchain is the ability for dApps to

anonymously analyze data.

Fortunately, this problem is not impossible. Based on our CEO’s MIT thesis, Enigma solves blockchain’s scalability and privacy issues from the protocol level with a second-layer, off-chain network. Key to this is Enigma’s “secret contracts”, which allow data to be processed by nodes in the Enigma network while still being kept private. Through this innovative architecture, we are creating a truly decentralized and secure solution on which innovative applications can be built.

What we know is important, however, is not just what we say we are building: it is what we are actually able to create together with our community and our partners.

So what can we create?

The Potential of Our Protocol

Below, we will explore just a few important additional use cases for the Enigma protocol that show its huge potential in changing how the world will operate in a more decentralized future. In all of these ideas, “secret” smart contracts that preserve data privacy while still allowing for computation are required — meaning our technology will be essential.

Importantly, for all of the use cases we name below, we are already speaking with potential partners. Through our participation in programs like MIT’s STEX 25 — an accelerator for high-potential companies focused on industry partnerships — and our partnerships with companies like Intel, we will reach even more large companies that are focused on these opportunities.

We are always looking to connect with projects and companies who want to build with us. See if one of these use cases is important to you.