Obscuro. Unlocking a whole new world of use-cases with privacy on Ethereum

/ob’sku:.ro:/ (Latin) To conceal, hide;
A spell used to conjure a blindfold over
the eyes of the target.

Obscuro solves

Scaling Ethereum

Obscuro, as a Layer 2, massively scales Ethereum with faster, cheaper transactions, while inhereting all its security and ecosystem.

Privacy

Transact with full privacy on any Ethereum smart contracts. Obscuro provides the entire EVM - every Ethereum application can become a private Obscuro application with no changes.

Developer experience

Obscuro has solved the privacy developer experience. Application developers do not require any specialist knowledge, you can simply port over your Ethereum application. You can continue to use all the great existing Ethereum tooling like Remix, Ganache and Ethers.js.

User experience

There is no change to the end user experience. No need to generate complex ZKPs or change the way you interact with Ethereum applications today. The Ethereum to Obscuro user experience is seamless.

Maximal Extractable Value

Blockchains rely on miners seeing transactions in order to be able to validate them and secure the network. This creates a front-running issue, known as Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) that acts a tax on transactions. On Obscuro, there can be no MEV.

POBI

With the novel Proof of Block Inclusion (POBI) protocol, assets can be withdrawn back into Ethereum much faster than competing Layer 2s. In addition, the Obscuro network is fully decentralized from day one. Run by its users, Obscuro is unstoppable, uncensorable and will never go down.

use cases

Private NFTs

Issue, buy, sell, auction NFTs with complete privacy and without the possibility of being front-run. Move between L1 and L2s without friction or unnecessary withdrawal delays.

dark pool trading

A dark pool is a privately organized exchange for trading securities where exposure can be hidden until after execution and reporting. This allows investors to trade without publicly revealing their intentions during the search for a buyer or seller.

Gaming

Bringing computational privacy to gaming on blockchain will enable players to make moves without fear of being front-run and unlocks 'fog of war' type games .

Sealed auctions

In a sealed bid auction, bidders privately submit their one best offer in a sealed envelope. The bids are opened privately by the auctioneer and seller.

Private agreements

Agreements, such as a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between a supplier and buyer, are incredibly sensitive. They reveal commercial relationships and impact reputation where an SLA has failed. Agreements deployed to Obscuro can be entirely private, such that aside from the participants, nobody even knows the contract exists.

Identity

Solving KYC on blockchain is one of the biggest challenges. Obscuro allows you to build KYC solutions with complete privacy enabling users to only reveal the bits they choose to disclose on demand.

abstract

The design of Obscuro ensures that hardware manufacturers do not have to be trusted for the safety of the ledger. If one manufacturer turns malicious or there is a breach in the TEE technology, the protocol falls back to the behaviour of a public blockchain that preserves the ledger’s integrity but makes the transactions public. This situation will lead to a partial liveness failure because the withdrawal function will be suspended.

The design also focuses on preserving privacy for the limited period when it matters most, which removes the need for a privacy technique that is robust against all adversaries in perpetuity.

Obscuro sits in what we believe is a sweet spot between the existing rollup-based L2 offerings Optimistic and ZK Rollups. The use of confidential computing techniques coupled with economic incentives allows Obscuro to retain the performance and programming model simplicity of Optimistic rollups, and on top of that attain confidentiality, short withdrawal periods, and address MEV.

read the whitepaper

Obscuro is a decentralized Layer 2 privacy solution built on top of Ethereum. Obscuro is designed to enable any Ethereum contract to operate at a larger scale, lower gas, without risk of MEV and crucially, with full privacy. It leverages a technology called Trusted Execution Environments, it's the technology that secures most of your devices. TEEs provide complete privacy, even from the operators of the host machines.

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roadmap

Obscuro
Project
Starts

Q1 2022

Single Aggregator node demonstrating basic execution of a generic Ethereum smart contract with privacy.

Q2 2022

Consensus Testnet. L2 test network available for Application Developers. Ethereum L1 Testnet integration. POBI consensus protocol.

Q3 2022

Privacy Testnet. L2 test network available for Application Developers and Aggregator Node Operators. POBI consensus protocol plus privacy.

Q4 2022

Obscuro Foundation established with decentralized governance. OBX utility token distribution for block rewards and incentives.
Mainnet launch.

coreteam

JAMES CARLYLE

As Chief Engineer of R3, James helped design Corda, and sat on R3's Executive and Risk committees. Previously, he was the Chief Engineer for Barclays Corporate Banking, co-founder of several start-ups, and holds multiple patents. James holds a degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Durham University. James has been obsessed with blockchain technology since 2014 because it appeals to his libertarian streak.

MATT CURTIS

As a full-stack developer in the finance industry, Matt has over 10 years of experience designing and developing trading systems and trader tooling at various firms including Goldman Sachs, IG Group and Tyler Capital. He holds a degree in Mathematics from the University of Warwick and is excited to be building on blockchain technology after finally making the leap from traditional finance in 2021.

JOEL DUDLEY

Joel started in tech as the head of an insurance data platform. Since the platform's acquisition in 2018, he's held various positions in the blockchain space - developer relations, product management, engineering - always focussed on marrying privacy and blockchain to expand the landscape of potential use-cases. Joel holds a degree in Economics from the University of York.

PEDRO GOMES

With over 10 years of engineering, Pedro took a deep dive from distributed computing, performance engineering and big data to blockchain tech. As a team lead in Ava labs Pedro contributed to the Avalanche ecosystem and spearheaded the chaos and test team. Pedro holds a Masters in Computer Networking from Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa.

MORAY GRIEVE

As R3's Head of QA, Moray helped build the test automation and processes for Corda. Before R3, Moray was a Research Physicist in Cambridge and Antarctica, spent 10 years with leading event stream processing engine Apama, and 6 years in investment banking front office. More recently, Moray built the world's largest audio database for the machine learning of sounds and delivered a groundbreaking novel geospatial database. He holds a PhD in Physics from Sheffield University and first discovered blockchain in 2017.

TUDOR MALENE

Formerly a lead engineer for Corda, Tudor helped build critical components of the platform, and as a solutions architect, contributed to the success of the most important Corda projects. With 20 years of professional experience, Tudor has designed and built solutions ranging from insurance, fintech, banking to media. He holds a degree in Computer Science from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, and discovered blockchain in 2011.

CAIS MANAI

Formerly Product Lead for Digital Assets, Payments and CBDC at R3, Cais has worked with some of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions to develop products. Prior to R3, Cais spent 10 years in Finance, leading teams in Prime Brokerage and Equity Derivatives Trading Technology at UBS and Credit Suisse. He graduated with a degree in Computer Science from University College, London. Cais first began developing with blockchain in 2012.

GAVIN THOMAS

As R3's Engineering COO, Gavin helped deliver the first versions of Corda and subsequently moved to Head of PMO for all Engineering deliveries. He has previously delivered eCommerce trading platforms for a global client base. Gavin holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nottingham and is a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Gavin first understood the unique value of blockchain in 2015 and has not looked back.

MIKE WARD

In the five years of building blockchain solutions for the finance industry as Head of Product at R3, Mike’s seen first hand how privacy is the key to bringing blockchain to the mainstream. Mike brings more years in software than he’d like to admit. Ten years at Microsoft and eight years at startups in Silicon Valley bring some well worn lessons in how software can eat the world (one bite at a time).