Safeheron launches world’s first open-sourced Intel SGX TEE for Web3
Safeheron, a Singapore-based provider of digital asset self-custody solutions for institutions, has released the world’s first open-sourced trusted execution environment (TEE) related to Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX).
The Intel SGX is a hardware-based security technology integrated within some Intel processors. It enables application developers to run application code within a secure isolated environment, while preventing access to that code or modification of it by other applications or by the operating system running on that hardware.
Addressing Web3 security & scalability challenges
The Intel SGX enables a TEE, creating a black box for computation. In a blog post published by Safeheron on May 6, the company claimed that its open-source framework “addresses fundamental security and scalability challenges within blockchain and Web3 ecosystems, offering broad potential for deployment across critical scenarios.”
The company asserted that the enabling of off-chain TEEs as achieved by its framework, provides for robust blockchain layer-2 scaling, together with privacy-preserving computation. In this way, layer-1 blockchain load can be minimized while enhancing network throughput and verifiability. Safeheron further claimed that this all paves the way for the evolution of a trusted “second execution layer” for decentralized applications.
Overcoming Intel SGX complexity
Safeheron developed the TEE framework using C++, a high-level object-oriented programming language. The firm open-sourced the SGX framework due to the significant challenges that developing with Intel SGX poses, arising from its complexity and its engineering overhead.
On X, the company claimed that the new framework reduces SGX TEE development complexity, enabling developers to build applications securely for blockchain, cloud security and privacy computing. The framework optimizes advanced cryptographic support, enhanced testing capabilities, high-level API design and secure and encrypted file input and output.
Moving beyond closed and opaque systems
Safeheron added that it open-sourced the framework as it had seen concern expressed within the Web3 sector regarding the development of closed and opaque systems, with that concern elevated in relation to ongoing security failures related to Web3 platforms.
Safeheron CEO Wade Wang told Cointelegraph that in open-sourcing the framework, the firm is “not threatened by competitors,” but that it is concerned about “slow innovation due to closed systems.”
The Singaporean firm was established in 2021. It counts HashKey Capital, Bixin Ventures, Antalpha Ventures, M77 Ventures and Kryptos among its investors. Back in 2022, it raised $7 million in a pre-Series A funding round. At the time, the project’s mission was to make private keys, which individuals use to control and self-custody their digital assets, safer.
In terms of products offered, the company markets its MPC Node Suite, a white-label solution that allows clients to build out multi-party computation (MPC) wallet-based applications. It also offers Keyless Wallets that facilitate the development of wallets that don’t require traditional keys.
In February crypto exchange platform BYDFi partnered with Safeheron, leveraging its MPC technology and TEE to build out a key management system.
