Scale or Die at Accelerate 2025: Encrypt or Die (Yannik Schrade | Arcium)

Arcium, a pioneering force in blockchain privacy, unveils a groundbreaking encrypted computing network that promises to revolutionize privacy on Solana. This innovative technology could be the key to unlocking institutional adoption and enabling a new wave of powerful, privacy-preserving applications in the Solana ecosystem.

Summary

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Yannik Schrade, co-founder and CEO of Arcium, presented a compelling vision for the future of privacy in blockchain technology at the Accelerate 2025 conference. Arcium, formerly known as Elusiv, has developed a stateless encrypted computing network that integrates seamlessly with Solana for consensus and state management.

The core innovation introduced by Arcium is the concept of "encrypted shared state" directly on-chain. This new primitive allows programs to execute encrypted functions over encrypted data without ever revealing the underlying information. This breakthrough has far-reaching implications for privacy in decentralized applications, particularly in areas such as DeFi and machine learning.

Arcium's approach to privacy is not driven by political motivations but by practical business needs. The team recognizes that privacy must become a logical business decision for widespread adoption. By enabling new, more powerful applications through encrypted computing, Arcium aims to make privacy an integral and natural part of blockchain technology.

The technology behind Arcium's solution, called Cerberus, combines semi-homomorphic encryption with secure multi-party computation (MPC) to achieve high performance and scalability. This innovative approach allows for encrypted computations that are orders of magnitude faster than traditional fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) methods.

Key Points:

Encrypted Shared State

Arcium's primary innovation is the concept of encrypted shared state on-chain. Unlike previous privacy solutions that relied on isolated local secret states, encrypted shared state allows for collaborative computations while maintaining privacy. This breakthrough enables a new class of applications where multiple parties can interact and compute over shared data without revealing sensitive information.

The encrypted shared state works by maintaining encrypted data on-chain through dedicated Solana programs. These programs can then call functions to be executed in an encrypted manner within the Arcium network. The results of these computations can be settled back to the Solana program, with the option to keep outputs encrypted, make them public, or selectively reveal them to specific actors.

Cerberus Protocol

At the heart of Arcium's technology is the Cerberus protocol, a custom-built solution designed to overcome the limitations of existing privacy technologies. Cerberus utilizes semi-homomorphic encryption and replaces expensive multiplication operations with a concept called correlated randomness. This approach significantly reduces computational overhead compared to fully homomorphic encryption (FHE).

The Cerberus protocol operates in two phases: an offline phase for generating correlated randomness, and an online phase for actual computation. This separation allows for improved efficiency and scalability. The protocol leverages secure multi-party computation (MPC) to enable collaborative computation over distributed private data while maintaining the privacy of all inputs.

Trust Model and Security

Arcium has implemented a robust trust model for its encrypted computing network. Unlike many MPC protocols that rely on an honest majority assumption, Cerberus adopts a dishonest majority trust model. This means that the system remains secure as long as there is at least one honest participant in a computation, significantly reducing the trust requirements.

To address potential vulnerabilities in dishonest majority protocols, Arcium has implemented a security model with identifiable abort. This allows for cryptographic identification of misbehaving participants, enabling censorship resistance and the ability to slash malicious actors. This innovative approach ensures the integrity and reliability of the encrypted computations.

Developer-Friendly Integration

Arcium has developed ARCHUS, a custom Rust compiler that supports the Rust core library. This tool allows developers to add encrypted computing capabilities to their applications without needing to understand the underlying cryptography. Developers can write normal Rust code with a few additional macros to specify which parts should be encrypted, making it easy to integrate privacy features into existing applications.

Facts + Figures

• Arcium has been building privacy solutions on Solana for three and a half years
• The company evolved from Elusiv to Arcium one year ago
• Arcium acquired its largest Web2 competitor last year
• More than 60% of daily US spot volume in traditional finance is traded off-exchange in dark pools
• Arcium's public testnet was launched three weeks ago and is accessible from Solana DevNet
• The testnet features a live encrypted order book for demonstrating encrypted trading
• Arcium's technology is many orders of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art fully homomorphic encryption (FHE)
• The Cerberus protocol uses a dishonest majority trust assumption, requiring only one honest participant for security
• Arcium's Monte-Core protocol successfully ran the 16 billion parameter deep-seq model in a fully encrypted way

Top quotes

1. "We allow for anyone to encrypt everything with the encrypted supercomputer we're building with Arcium."
2. "Privacy can only find adoption if it becomes a logical business decision to add privacy to applications, not simply by looking for some political narrative."
3. "Nobody wants slow, expensive, and feature-limited privacy. People don't want to go out of their way to have privacy."
4. "We believe that privacy needs to be practical and cannot be a theoretical problem."
5. "Users want privacy, they don't notice, and applications should become more powerful through encrypted computing."

Questions Answered

What is Arcium and how does it relate to Solana?

Arcium is a stateless encrypted computing network that integrates with Solana for consensus and state management. It provides a new primitive called "encrypted shared state" directly on-chain, enabling programs to execute encrypted functions over encrypted data without revealing the underlying information. This technology allows for privacy-preserving applications to be built on top of Solana, expanding the capabilities of the ecosystem.

How does Arcium's approach to privacy differ from previous solutions?

Arcium's approach focuses on enabling new, more powerful applications rather than treating privacy as a political issue. The company aims to make privacy a logical business decision by providing practical solutions that can be easily integrated into existing applications. Arcium's technology allows for encrypted shared state and collaborative computations, going beyond the limitations of previous privacy solutions that relied on isolated local secret states.

What is the Cerberus protocol and how does it work?

The Cerberus protocol is Arcium's custom-built solution for encrypted computing. It combines semi-homomorphic encryption with secure multi-party computation (MPC) to achieve high performance and scalability. The protocol operates in two phases: an offline phase for generating correlated randomness, and an online phase for actual computation. This approach allows for encrypted computations that are significantly faster than traditional fully homomorphic encryption methods while maintaining strong security guarantees.

How does Arcium ensure the security of its encrypted computations?

Arcium implements a dishonest majority trust model, which means the system remains secure as long as there is at least one honest participant in a computation. This is a more robust trust assumption compared to the honest majority model used by many other MPC protocols. Additionally, Arcium has implemented a security model with identifiable abort, allowing for cryptographic identification and slashing of misbehaving participants, ensuring the integrity of the encrypted computations.

How can developers integrate Arcium's encryption technology into their applications?

Arcium has developed ARCHUS, a custom Rust compiler that supports the Rust core library. This tool allows developers to add encrypted computing capabilities to their applications without needing to understand the underlying cryptography. Developers can write normal Rust code and use a few additional macros to specify which parts should be encrypted. This makes it easy for developers to integrate privacy features into their existing Solana applications with minimal changes to their codebase.

What are some potential use cases for Arcium's encrypted computing technology?

Arcium's technology enables a wide range of privacy-preserving applications. Some potential use cases include private DeFi, where trading can occur with fully encrypted order books and transaction details. Another exciting application is private machine learning, where data analysis can be performed on encrypted datasets without compromising individual privacy. This could be particularly valuable in scenarios where sensitive data needs to be analyzed collaboratively without revealing the underlying information to any single party.

How does Arcium's technology compare to other privacy solutions like fully homomorphic encryption (FHE)?

Arcium's Cerberus protocol is designed to be significantly faster and more practical than traditional fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) methods. While FHE allows for computations over encrypted data, it comes with substantial computational overhead, especially for multiplication operations. Cerberus uses semi-homomorphic encryption and replaces expensive multiplications with correlated randomness, resulting in performance that is many orders of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art FHE solutions.

What impact could Arcium's technology have on institutional adoption of blockchain technology?

Arcium's encrypted computing network could play a crucial role in attracting institutional participants to the Solana ecosystem. By providing privacy features similar to those found in traditional finance (such as dark pools), Arcium's technology addresses a key concern for institutional players. The ability to perform encrypted transactions and maintain confidentiality of trading strategies could make blockchain-based financial applications more appealing to large financial institutions, potentially driving significant adoption and liquidity to the Solana network.