There is a particular kind of magic trick that only a real engineer can pull off, and Alekos Filini — of Who Is Satoshi? fame, and now the man behind Enclavia — performed it for us this week on Antidote Inside. The trick is this: take something so fiendishly complicated that even seasoned Bitcoin companies have quietly shoved it onto the “one day, maybe” pile of their roadmaps, and make it simple. Not the thing itself — the complexity of the thing. What’s left, if you do it right, is a product people will actually use. That product is Enclavia, and it makes confidential computing available to any developer.
Trusted computing makes use of secure enclaves, or trusted execution environments — a computer in the cloud that nobody, not even the company or individual running it, can peer inside. Our phones have secure enclaves where our FaceID or TouchID data is stored. Secure enclaves rely on two properties to function. First, your data is encrypted not merely at rest but while it’s being processed, which is the challenging part. Second, attestation: the enclave can prove, mathematically, that it’s running exactly the code it claims to be running.
The use cases are not theoretical. eCash mints with radically reduced theft risk, where the operator literally cannot steal user funds. Lightning nodes running always-on in the cloud without users needing a home server to make use of Lightning’s best features. Beyond Bitcoin, also, are use cases in fintech, healthcare, and eventually the great fortified citadels of government and defence. Alekos’ vision is of a world is one where confidential computing is the default; where your medical records are stored in the cloud for ease of access, but unlock only when you say so, for example while you’re sat in the doctor’s surgery.
In the age of AI, precisely what data you leave available for machines to crawl is also a growing concern. Demand for confidential compute is increasing as a result. This demand is constrained by the difficulty in standing up the server environments where this can happen. Companies put this decision off, questioning time and resource opportunity costs from other, money-making product features. In radically simplifying the deployment of this infrastructure, Enclavia makes confidential compute available to a far wider developer base with a simple docker push.
The summer ahead will see Enclavia concentrating on positioning and traction. We’ll check in come Demo Day. Watch this space.
If you’re a founder building something that deserves to exist — something with craft in it, something that isn’t just peddling for attention — Antidote wants to hear from you. Apply at antidotebtc.com.
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