Enigma (ENG) is a blockchain project that, by its very own nomenclature, is often misunderstood or misinterpreted by the masses due to its complexity. There has also been a stigma associated with Enigma as a result of the ICO mishap which has unfortunately meant it is often overlooked, but it’s time to evaluate the project on its merits and potential.
This review will only cover the protocol being developed by Enigma and will not touch on Catalyst, the first application built on Enigma’s data marketplace.
The Enigma protocol is a second-layer, off-chain network that aims to solve the two biggest problems for blockchains: scalability and privacy. By enabling secure, decentralized data computation and exchange, Enigma allows blockchains to truly fulfil their powerful promise.
Enigma is taking data off of the blockchain and doing the data crunching on a decentralised network of nodes.
Current processing rates on-chain is slow and expensive.
Enigma uses a network of off-chain nodes which can be scaled to meet increasing workloads/demands.
Off-chain data storage is generally centralised
The off-chain network of decentralised nodes allows for multi-party computations to take place. By splitting the computation amongst a number of nodes, the protocol achieves off-chain privacy in that the majority of nodes must cooperate in order for the computation to finish and reveal internal data to the on-chain computing node, and at no stage does an off-chain node receive a full view of the complete computation at hand.
Everywhere. Being a protocol, Enigma is blockchain agnostic – this means any blockchain in the world can adopt the protocol! For the time being the team is focused on Ethereum, but expansion is possible and on the horizon.
Enigma is currently partnered with AION, a blockchain solution looking to solve interoperability which will look to introduce Enigma globally.
Real world applications of Enigma would include any database which requires private computations. There will always be fear of data safety for industries with sensitive data, but the Enigma protocol mitigates this risk and allows the organisation to consider a blockchain solution. The following industries look to benefit the most from having such a protocol:
• Health
• Banking/Credit
• Identity
• Government
The project is being owned and driven by an MIT-bred team that has been working on multi-party computations for years. With advisors such as Alex Pentland, who sits on the Advisory Boards for Google and Nissan, it is hard to find a fault in the team.
Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, has recognised the work of Enigma and referenced the protocol in his blog delving into privacy on the blockchain.
The community is extremely active on Reddit, Telegram and Discord and have been helping raise awareness and understanding of Enigma within the general cryptocurrency community. In fact, I came across the coin on the back of a Reddit post.
• Roadmap - At the time of posting, there is no official roadmap for the Enigma protocol. Posts on Reddit and conversations on Telegram have provided indicative timeframes, but an official correspondence from the team would be fantastic. No doubt this is a big ask given the complexity of the project...but a nice to have.
• Marketing - The team has not done a lot of marketing thus far and have spent their efforts refining Catalyst and the protocol, which makes sense. 2018 needs to be the year Enigma gets some marketing exposure from the team; the fantastic community which I noted above have been driving the market awareness of the project...
Enigma is addressing two of the shortfalls of current blockchains; privacy and scalability. This is an enormous protocol that has the potential to trickle down into every blockchain project in existence and opens the door for organisations to confidently process their data on-chain.
The need for Enigma in the market will become increasingly obvious as wider adoption of blockchain technology takes place and the demand for scaling and privacy increases as there isn’t an industry in the world that wouldn’t want secure, private data processing and computations.
The ceiling for Enigma’s potential is as far as blockchain can stretch and 2018 will be the year the sleeping giant wakes up as its main net goes live.
Disclaimer: I do hold a small amount of Enigma, but am not associated in any way with the team. More information on the project and the team can be found on the Enigma Website.
As always, donations are welcome and very much appreciated.
ETH and ENG Address: 0x11f2665Ecb891ee2f4e357d327cd8dA636D744b7
$6.73 USD
0.00044808 BTC
0.00598382 ETH
Market Cap: $503,769,414
CMC Rank: 76
Circulating Supply: 74,836,171
Total Supply: 150,000,000
