What is Arcium?
Arcium is a parallelized confidential computing network, providing developers and applications with a trustless, verifiable, and efficient framework to run encrypted computations. Arcium aims to bring confidentiality to every on-chain application, becoming the global compute network for the decentralized internet.
What is
Confidential Computing?
Data exists in three primary states: at rest, in use, and in transit. “At rest” signifies stored data, while “in use” indicates data actively being processed. Data “in transit” refers to information traversing across networks. Until recently, the only data encrypted was at rest and in transit. Safeguarding data at runtime remains essential as this state is also prone to vulnerabilities since their security ultimately depends on hardware vendors and not math. Confidential Computing refers to encrypting and protecting data while in use, enabling data to remain encrypted throughout its full lifecycle.
From hardware-based encryption to cryptography-based encryption
Most confidential computing technology has relied on hardware-based solutions called Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). TEEs are secure enclaves responsible for running data and code in isolated environments. However, these hardware-based solutions have suffered from various vulnerabilities.
The Arcium Network enhances confidential computing by focusing on cryptography-based encryption. By combining novel primitives in Multiparty Computation (MPC), Homomorphic Encryption (HE), Zero-Knoweldge Proofs (ZKPs), and more, we enable trustless, verifiable and efficient encrypted computation without needing to rely on hardware or trusted parties fully.
Arcium
Architecture
The Arcium Network consists of two main parts: the Arx Network and Multiparty Computation Execution Environments (MXEs).
Node Network
The Arcium Network is comprised of up of decentralized nodes (a single node is called an Arx node) running MPC, where each Arx plays a critical role in collaboratively processing encrypted data. This network is organized via an existing blockchain, where Arxs can form subsets called 'clusters' than can jointly compute functions and derive insights from encrypted data without ever revealing individual data to one another or the network.
MXEs
Multiparty Computation eXecution Environments define a set of parameters specified by developers for secure multiparty computations to be executed on the MXE network. MXEs allow several aspects to be configured, including:
Authority
Who is allowed to initiate an execution of a given MXE?
Cluster
What nodes are allowed & mandated to participate in executing this MXE?
Protocol
What MPC protocol is to be used?
IO Scheme
Where does the input data come from and where should the output data be written to?
Computation Definition
What operations are allowed on the data in this MXE and how are these operations defined?
MXEs can be configured via the MXE API, which is engineered to cater to a diverse range of developer needs and preferences, offering two interfaces: a user-friendly web-based graphical interface and a comprehensive SDK.
Key features of the
parallel execution
Adoption-ready performance
Computations are executed in parallel, ensuring adoption-ready throughput right out of the box. Unlike other solutions where everyone tries to access one global state, each MXE has its own state, which allows for parallelization and throughput.
Configurable setups
Build flexibly
MXEs can be customized to exact specifications, making them ideal for a wide range of use cases. Whether encrypting specific parts of an application or deploying confidential smart contracts, MXEs provide a framework for use cases and applications across Web3 and non-Web3 verticals.
Composable Architecture
Multichain access
Arcium is a chain-agnostic network, streamlining the development process for ecosystem-specific developers while avoiding liquidity fragmentation. Additionally, this allows non-blockchain-based users to configure the trust model for the blockchain layer according to their needs.