Secret Network: Decentralized Confidential Computing (DeCC) For All Of Web3
Secret Network is working to bring decentralized confidential computing (DeCC) to all of Web3, unlocking new capabilities for applications on nearly any blockchain. The recent announcement of Secret’s Confidential Computing Layer reveals just how powerful and interoperable it has become. Essentially, an application on nearly any blockchain can communicate with a contract on Secret Network in order to perform some type of confidential computation. For example, a DAO on Ethereum can have private voting, a DEX on Neutron can have an encrypted order book preventing MEV, and NFTs on Stargaze can unlock confidential data.
A Brief History of Secret
Secret Network has been a part of the interchain since the early days, going live on mainnet in September of 2020. Its core value proposition is the ability to build decentralized applications that contain encrypted data, unlike most blockchains which require all data to be public. This enables new use-cases for popular Web3 applications such as DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, etc.
From the very beginning, the founders of Secret Network knew interoperability was going to play a huge part in the future of Web3, which is why they chose to build on the Interchain Stack. In those days, interoperability was in its infancy, especially for the EVM ecosystem. Cross-chain bridges were often buggy, full of trust assumptions, and mainly used for transferring fungible tokens from one chain to another. The interchain on the other hand was already at work developing advanced cross-chain functionality by way of the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol. This groundbreaking technology aimed to not only enable token transfers, but also cross-chain smart contract interactions.
Still, for the first few years, in order to easily take advantage of Secret Network’s confidentiality, users needed to bridge their tokens into Secret, and developers needed to build their applications directly on Secret. Although cross-chain contract calls to other IBC-enabled chains were technically possible, the technology was not well documented or adopted yet. Over time, newer versions of the Cosmos SDK and IBC protocol were released, which made cross-chain interactions much more usable. It was at this time that Secret Network really started to focus on cross-chain support.
Cross-Chain Confidential Computing
In June of 2023, Secret announced “Privacy as a Service”, the initial concept of Secret providing other blockchains with confidential computing via cross-chain communication. This announcement presented several ideas for cross-chain applications. In addition to IBC, Secret also integrated with the Axelar network, enabling general message passing between Secret and various EVM chains. This opened up the doors to many new developers and ecosystems. However, the cross-chain confidential computing concept still needed time to be built out and documented.
Since that time, Secret Network’s developers have been hard at work at doing just this. Today, Secret’s Confidential Computing Layer is more capable than it’s ever been. With 10+ major EVM blockchains currently supported, solid documentation showing developers how to utilize it, and virtually any EVM and IBC chain able to be connected to it, the doors are wide open for this technology to take off!
The Road Ahead
Over the next few months, Secret Network is set to integrate its Confidential Computing Layer with many new blockchains, and announce partnerships with each of them, in order to spread awareness and provide dedicated support to their ecosystems. They aim to onboard new developers in this process, opening their eyes to the new possibilities that confidential computing unlocks. Secret will be expanding the capabilities of these partnered blockchains, bringing new functionality to their existing ecosystems and breaking through the limitations of traditional Web3 applications. The ultimate goal is to provide decentralized confidential computing to all of Web3.
In parallel, Secret will continue improving its Confidential Computing Layer’s capabilities. They are currently in the process of integrating new cross-chain messaging technologies such as Wormhole, Union, and Composable, which will enable Secret’s CCL to reach new blockchains like Solana, Aptos, and NEAR. Not only will this expand Secret’s reach, it will also give developers more options when designing their cross-chain logic. Secret aims to provide many different tools in order to make the development experience as easy as possible. Additionally, they plan to continue developing new cross-chain application examples and publishing detailed documentation and tutorials for them. Some upcoming examples include encrypted order books for DeFi, and unlockable confidential data for NFTs.
Get ready for the power of #DeCC — Secret’s Confidential Computing Layer is coming to a blockchain near you!
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