Question 1

How is Arcium related to Elusiv?

Answer

Arcium was created by the team behind Elusiv, an application-layer zero-knowledge (ZK) privacy protocol based on Solana that sunsetted in March 2024. While building the next phase of the Elusiv stack, a core part of the architecture focused on a privacy-preserving compliance system called ZEUS (Zero-Knowledge Encrypted User Safeguarding). Simply put, ZEUS delivered encrypted computation. We knew the pressing need for privacy and confidentiality across different Web3 verticals, so we decided to focus our resources on generalizing the technology behind ZEUS to enable any on-chain application to leverage encrypted computation.

Question 2

How can developers interact with Arcium?

Answer

Arcium provides an API with a web-based graphical interface for users to construct computational workflows using predefined modules. A Software Development Kit (SDK) is also available for developers to create custom MXE instances tailored to their specific needs, whether for complex DeFi computations, statistical analysis, or anything in between.

Question 3

How does Arcium differ from ZK-based solutions?

Answer

MXEs enable encrypted computation, which allows for shared private state. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) allow one to prove a statement about a given piece of data while keeping parts of or the whole piece of data hidden. ZK is useful in a large chunk of privacy applications focusing on single-user privacy (for example Identity verification) but suffers from the flaw that it requires the party computing the proof to know the data in plaintext to generate the proof, making it unsuitable for more complex applications that require shared private state.

Question 4

How does Arcium differ from FHE-based solutions?

Answer

FHE allows for executing arbitrary computations on encrypted data without decryption. However, pure FHE suffers from performance bottlenecks and proper computation verification mechanisms. Arcium provides encrypted computation with high throughput thanks to parallel execution and includes cheater detection, which ensures encrypted computation can be executed at scale and that these computations are executed correctly.

Question 5

Is Arcium its own Blockchain?

Answer

No, Arcium requires a data availability and a state consensus layer and is thus invoked by an underlying blockchain. This has several advantages, including better composability and no liquidity fragmentation. Furthermore, Arcium is designed to be chain-agnostic, allowing developers to deploy confidential smart contracts across different blockchains while also offering non-blockchain-based users the ability to configure even the trust model for the blockchain layer according to their needs.

Question 6

What are MXEs

Answer

Multiparty computation eXecution Environments (MXEs) are the backbone of the Arcium Network. They combine Multiparty Computations (MPC), Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), and more to enable encrypted computations. MXEs are highly configurable, allowing users to customize everything from the trust assumptions to hardware investment. Head to our docs to learn more about MXEs.

Question 7

What is Arcium?

Answer

Arcium is a parallelized confidential computing network. It provides developers and applications with a trustless, verifiable, and efficient framework to run encrypted computations. Arcium aims to bring confidentiality to every on-chain application and become the global computing network for the decentralized internet.