Crypto AI series: FHE
Fully Homomorphic Encryption
It’s the 57th edition of The Gems Corner, and we’ll be starting a new series on Crypto AI. It’ll be focused on exploring Artificial Intelligence verticals in crypto, and other alphas.
Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE)
Introducing FHE, a simple yet profoundly powerful concept: the ability to perform computations on encrypted data without ever decrypting it. Imagine a world where sensitive information remains secure throughout processing, whether it's in the cloud, on a blockchain, or in transit.
This paradigm shift eliminates the inherent risks associated with data exposure, offering unparalleled privacy and security.
The Fundamentals of FHE
Traditional encryption methods protect data at rest and in transit, but they fall short when it comes to processing. FHE bridges this gap by allowing computations on encrypted data, producing encrypted results that, when decrypted, match those obtained by processing the raw data.
This is achieved through complex mathematical constructs known as homomorphic encryption schemes.
The journey began in 2009 when Craig Gentry, then a Stanford Ph.D. student, introduced the first viable FHE scheme. Since then, the cryptographic community has been refining and optimizing these schemes to make them practical for real-world applications. The primary challenge has been balancing security, computational efficiency, and practicality.
Benefits of FHE
Data Privacy: FHE ensures that data remains encrypted throughout its lifecycle, reducing the risk of unauthorized access or breaches.
Secure Cloud Computing: With FHE, sensitive computations can be outsourced to the cloud without compromising data security.
Regulatory Compliance: FHE offers a robust solution for industries dealing with stringent data privacy regulations, such as healthcare and finance.
Decentralized Applications: FHE can enhance the security and privacy of decentralized applications (dApps) by allowing encrypted smart contracts and transactions.
Projects Frontrunning this Narrative
1. Zama
Zama is dedicated to democratizing FHE through its open-source platform. Their goal is to make FHE accessible to developers and businesses, enabling secure applications across various industries.
Zama's emphasis on user-friendly APIs and comprehensive documentation is paving the way for widespread adoption.
2. Fhenix
Fhenix is at the forefront of the data security revolution, specializing in Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). Fhenix’s innovative solutions enable businesses and developers to perform secure computations on encrypted data without ever needing to decrypt it.
3. Inco Network
Inco is a modular confidential computing Layer-1 blockchain and universal confidentiality layer for Ethereum and other networks, utilizing Ethereum security and FHE to enable composable and operable confidential states.
Their fhEVM (FHE + EVM) makes it possible to write private smart contracts and perform computations on top of encrypted data without requiring its decryption.
4. Fair Math
Fair Math is aimed at promoting the adoption of FHE by building a developer community and toolset that significantly simplifies the development of FHE applications.
They also partnered with OpenFHE to create FHERMA challenges platform - a platform that uses a competition-based approach to solve challenging problems in practice, allowing them to gather a purely community-driven library of FHE components.
Other worthy mentions:
Mind Network: An FHE restaking layer for POS and AI Networks
Nillion: The orchestration layer for PETs and first blind computer
Privasea: An AI and DePIN network enabled through FHEML
Sight AI: A secure computation layer enabled by FHE
Even though FHE is not a new to crypto, the narrative is still emerging and haven’t gotten that much mindshare. It’s time to pay attention, and position for the crowd.
As we stand at the brink of a new era, its expidient to embrace the frountrunners of FHE, together we can create a more secure and private digital world.
Alpha Bites and Tweets
That’s a wrap.
Thanks for reading!
Viktor DeFi.
PS: I’d love to hear your feedback and comments.
nice one ser!
Great Job Víctor!!!!