Blockchain technology has the potential to address so many problems, but it’s not without caveats. Blockchains by their very nature are immutable and transparent; transaction records are permanently added to a public ledger viewable to the whole network, and can never be altered. This applies not only to simple transactions, but also for smart contracts. While this is all great for security and transparency, what about privacy, not to mention the burden that smart contracts place on the network itself? This is where Engima (ENG) comes in. This project hopes to usher in a new era of safer “secret contracts” which offer all the benefits of smart contracts, while addressing the challenges of scalability and maximizing privacy. How does it work? Let’s delve into the details and see why ENG is our Coin of the Week.

What is Engima (ENG)?

When Ethereum launched in 2015, it introduced to concept of self-executing “smart” contracts to the world. Smart contracts are what allow decentralized applications (dApps) to function without any sort of centralized entity or server to handle the administrative roles. However, every smart contract and dApp must be stored on the Ethereum blockchain itself. This can place an enormous burden on the network, and it is what lies at the heart of the scalability problems the Ethereum team is trying to solve.

The other challenge with these smart contracts is that they are transparent. While in many cases this is a good thing, some potential users might not be so thrilled. Inputs, outputs and functions can be seen by every node on the Ethereum network. This creates a problem for, say, enterprise users who want to keep the details of a contract confidential.

The team behind Engima wanted to solve this problem by revamping the whole idea of a smart contract to make them more scalable, and more private “secret contracts”.

Engima makes use of distributed hash-table (DHT) technology to move and store smart contracts off the main blockchain. The details of the contract are broken up into pieces like a jigsaw puzzle and scattered to various off-chain nodes as part of a process called multi-party computations (MPC). The nodes each compute the functions they received, but none are able to see the transaction in its entirety. As the functions are solved, it is passed to the next nodes, and the “puzzle” is reassembled until the result is found. This allows the content of the smart contract to remain hidden, hence the name “secret contract”.

Engima protocol in action.

Again, this all happens off of the main ethereum blockchain; only a record of the completed smart contract is sent back to the ethereum network, which significantly reduces the potential burden it would place on the network.

Enigma is currently built on Ethereum, so ENG remains an ERC-20 token for now (more on that in a minute), but it is designed to be a blockchain-agnostic protocol, so that eventually any blockchain will be able to make use of Engima for secret contacts.

The first major dApp built with the Enigma protocol is Catalyst, an algorithmic trading library for cryptocurrency assets. With Catalyst users can gather and share data to design trading strategies, and ultimately allow developers to use this information to build and test trading algorithms. This dApp will eventually grow into a market unto itself, where users can subscribe to trading algorithms and developers can earn royalty fees.

Enigma Partnerships, Developments and Token Performance so far

Enigma was first publicly listed at $0.61, and quickly became hailed as one of the most promising projects of 2018. After hitting an all-time high of $8.06 in in January, it endured several months of ups and downs before correcting down to around $0.59, where it remains as of 9/24/18.

From a short-term investment standpoint, this can seem demoralizing, but it has not stopped Engima from forming high-profile partnerships with Kyber Network, Aion, Eximchain and most notably Intel.

People with technical knowledge and lots of cash have faith in the project, and it’s clear from recent news that the team is in this for the long haul.

A few days ago, the Enigma team announced it would delay the release of the Discovery Protocol, an important step in the launch of a Engima mainnet. There are some who say that the obsession with mainnet launches fuels speculation, especially when there isn’t necessarily a reason to launch a mainnet by a specific date. It seems that the Enigma team agrees. In a recent statement quoted in Coindesk, Enigma’s Head of Marketing and Growth stated that the team is focusing its efforts on working with partners to build the best possible protocol.

While mainnet launches are exciting, and yes, they sometimes do bump up the price of a particular token, this decision is a sign that the Enigma team that has its priorities in the right place.

The best way to buy Enigma (ENG)

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Faast is the safest and most stress-free way to trade crypto assets there is. Try it out for yourself and get some Enigma (ENG) today.