Ocean Protocol partner with Enigma to help support and secure the decentralized web HSV GTS Follow Jan 25 · 6 min read

Who are Enigma ?

Enigma is a decentralized open-source protocol that lets anyone perform computations on encrypted data, bringing privacy to smart contracts and public blockchains.

Enigma is using groundbreaking privacy technologies to build the first platform for scalable, end-to-end decentralized applications.

Enigma is committed to openness and inclusivity. We are a permissionless, public network and we build in the open. Our public networked testnet is already launched with more releases and milestones on the way.

You can read more about our progress to date and upcoming priorities for the protocol in our blog posts, below is the most recent.

What is our mission ?

Born at MIT in 2015 our mission is to create products and systems that accelerate the adoption of decentralized technologies.

We are builders, researchers, explorers and pioneers looking to make a real difference.

The most difficult problems demand innovative solutions. Today many of the world’s biggest challenges arise from over centralization. We believe that decentralized systems like Enigma can help us solve them.

When too-big-to-fail banks nearly destroyed the global economy in 2008, a decentralized digital currency — Bitcoin — was born in response. Now, an over-centralized internet and large tech monopolies have put our privacy, our security, and our society at risk.

Enigma’s solutions are part of the foundation for a decentralized, more secure, more sustainable internet and a better world.

What are we doing ?

Enigma is building the first scalable platform for decentralized applications that can utilize sensitive or private data as inputs.

Enigma is building a decentralized internet which doesn’t rely on centralized solutions for computation or expose sensitive data publicly. This means that the Enigma network can perform computations over encrypted data without nodes in the network ever seeing the raw data.

Secret contracts unlock the enormous potential of dApps and can revolutionize industries like finance, credit, gaming, machine learning, healthcare and many others that depend on the use of sensitive data. They also help swing the balance of power over data back to the individual.

Encrypted data computation allows blockchains and other decentralized applications to work with private and sensitive data, unlocking powerful use cases and valuable new opportunities. Without solutions like Enigma the applications for blockchain are actually quite limited.

How does it work ?

Our protocol breaks up sensitive data and distributes it in an encrypted form across secret nodes on the Enigma network. Nodes can then use this data to perform computations without seeing or exposing the raw data itself.

As Enigma thus solves for scalability in addition to providing data privacy, we believe that the first decentralized applications with millions of users will be built on Enigma and that Enigma is the critical missing piece to a decentralized future.

Enigma’s Focus on Secure Computation

Secure computation is basically the execution of a transaction or mathematical problem, without revealing the subject’s data. An example of this is the “Millionaires problem,” where two high net worth individuals wish to compare their wealth with each other without revealing the actual value of their assets.

Although secure computation has been a field of study since the 1980s, the utility or performance of secure computation systems at scale has never been properly established.

Enigma’s work is now focussed on making secure computation feasible at scale and it believes it will revolutionize the internet and industry if it succeeds.

The ENG Token

The ENG token is Enigma’s native currency, currently an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum blockchain. The primary function of the ENG token within the Enigma protocol is to pay for ‘computations,’ similar to the function of Ether being used for gas in the Ethereum network.

When applications run a secret contract on the Enigma network, end users who interact with the application or the entity that deployed the application must spend ENG to complete the computation.

Likewise, nodes that operate within the Enigma network must stake ENG to be able to run computations. The more tokens a secret node stakes the more likely it is to be selected to work on the next secret contract.

Collaboration with Intel

Last June, Enigma announced its collaboration with Intel, focusing on research and development efforts to advance the development of privacy-preserving computation technologies.

Enigma Launch Partners

In August 2018, Enigma announced 8 launch partners who would be implementing Enigma’s privacy-preserving capabilities into their projects, including the Ocean Protocol, a decentralized ecosystem for AI data consumption; Datawallet, a decentralized consumer to business data exchange and Colendi, a decentralized credit scoring protocol.

Enigma’s protocol can power and secure all kinds of decentralized applications and platforms, as well as solve real problems for enterprise and government. Here’s some of our featured collaborators, investors, and partners.

INTEL

OUTLIER VENTURES

PANTERA

OCEAN PROTOCOL

FLYBRIDGE

FENBUSHI

EXIMCHAIN

2KEY

Enigma partner with Outlier Ventures

Outlier Ventures is Europe’s first venture firm dedicated to blockchain technology and one of the leading venture platforms in our space. Our teams are excited to work together towards our shared mission of scaling, strengthening, and securing the decentralized web.

Our partnership will focus on the growth of Enigma’s technology and network as well as driving developer and end user adoption. Outlier will contribute directly to the development of new tooling and build products and solutions using Enigma’s protocol.

Enigma will also become a member of the Convergence Alliance, a unique community of open source protocols, enterprise, start-ups, government bodies and academia chaired by Outlier Ventures, helping to lead the next phase of the Web. This is just the beginning for Enigma, Outlier and the Convergence Alliance.

Enigma’s privacy protocol solves key blockchain issues preventing global adoption.

Although blockchains are offering disruption to the way we store and distribute assets and data, they are fundamentally bad at privacy as the very same technology which makes them open and auditable allows tracking of potentially confidential transactions.

As a result, many in the blockchain industry believe a solution is needed for encrypted computations to make blockchain data more private and the Enigma project has the solution.

Team and advisors

Conclusion

The Enigma and Ocean Protocol partnership is very exciting and could potentially change the world wide web as we know it today, especially with the collaboration of Outlier Ventures and the Convergence Alliance.

I am very excited to follow this partnership to see where it takes us in securing a decentralized web, more exciting information to follow.