Fhenix, a possible layer-2 community that desires to deliver totally homomorphic encryption (FHE) to sensible contracts, has revealed a technical white paper for the primary FHE rollup.
FHE itself is a type of encryption that ensures the confidentiality of the information even whereas it’s getting used, for instance in sensible contracts, as a result of knowledge can stay encrypted and processed with out ever needing to be decrypted.
This allows Ethereum and different EVM networks to course of info privately, with potential functions associated to personal voting and confidential gaming — akin to poker, for instance.
Learn extra: Encryption startup Fhenix raises $7M for personal computation
Not like zero-knowledge (ZK) know-how, FHE is totally non-public, Fhenix CEO Man Itzhaki instructed Blockworks.
“With ZK, there’s an entity referred to as a prover that really sees the knowledge,” Itzhaki explains, “so confidentiality arises from the truth that this prover is being positioned on the person facet, producing the ZK proofs.”
One limitation is that it precludes use circumstances requiring computation on knowledge that comes from a number of customers, he stated.
This isn’t the case for FHE-based techniques, Itzahki stated. With FHE, knowledge and computation is finished on-chain, with out the necessity for a prover or one other entity.
“Our total imaginative and prescient at Fhenix is to create an FHE stack that may enable builders to construct functions with knowledge confidentiality, and for customers to learn out of those functions by growing their stage of safety and privateness,” he stated.
FHE in and of itself goes past simply safeguarding privateness, Man Zyskind, the founding father of SCRT Labs (the crew behind the Secret Community) instructed Blockworks.
“This isn’t nearly defending folks’s privateness — lack of on-chain encryption is the rationale why we’re very restricted within the functions we are able to construct on blockchains right now. As an illustration, take into account creating an on-chain poker recreation. With out encryption, gamers’ arms could be seen to all, rendering the sport unplayable,” he stated.
Zyskind notes that present privacy-focused blockchains rely closely on zero-knowledge proofs, which fall quick in the case of the combination of personal knowledge from a number of sources, akin to in an on-chain poker recreation or a sealed-bid public sale contract.
“Zero-knowledge proofs are extra suited to single-user situations, akin to verifying age with out revealing the precise delivery date. In these circumstances, zk proofs are efficient however inadequate for complicated, multi-party non-public knowledge integration, the place FHE rollups change into important,” he stated.
Utilizing an optimistic rollup construction
The FHE rollup white paper outlines using an optimistic rollup construction, a call, Itzahki notes, which can allow the rollup to be each scalable and personal.
Though utilizing a zk rollup structure will not be solely out of the query, Itzahki explains that it could be troublesome to create a rollup answer that mixes two very heavy-duty cryptographic techniques.
“At present second, the implementation of FHE by means of optimistic [rollup structures] is far more environment friendly,” he stated.
One of many key breakthroughs for Fhenix was devising an efficient mechanism for fraud proofs when utilizing an optimistic rollup.
Learn extra: So your layer-2 is ‘secured by Ethereum’ — what does that imply?
Itzahki explains that the crew was capable of introduce a fraud-proof mechanism utilizing net meeting, a low-level computing language, which can allow fraud verification to be enacted in the identical approach as if the information was not encrypted.
“Quite than [running] on the native EVM itself, that mechanism permits us to examine if that net meeting code as change, and lets us know if there’s a fraudulent transaction,” he stated.
Modular design
The FHE rollup shall be designed modularly, which means that it’s going to draw from completely different elements to create the blockchain.
“We have now a separation between the sequencer, validator, and the information availability layer,” Itzahki stated. “The info availability layer is often Ethereum, then we at Fhenix will deal with the sequencer and handle the execution, the validator, and the prover.”
Having a modular design will allow cryptographic improvements akin to FHE to execute extra effectively, enabling it to concentrate on its strengths the place wanted.
“We don’t essentially must have [FHE] all through your entire elements. In order that’s why we’re going with a modular design,” Itzahki provides.
Kyle Samani, managing companion at Multicoin Capital, an investor in Fhenix, stated the protocol’s rollup is a first-of-its-kind layer-2 that may deliver FHE on-chain in a usable approach.
“The white paper is a important first step in serving to builders notice that L2’s can be utilized for extra than simply scaling. They will now be used to increase the performance of functions into new design areas,” Samani stated.
Fhenix plans to launch the testnet of its first FHE rollup within the first quarter of 2024. It’s undecided whether or not the rollup stack shall be constructed open-source, although testing shall be out there to any tasks.
