Author: angelilu, Foresight News

According to the records of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the Persian king Darius wanted to convey a secret message to the Greek city-state of Athens. He chose a slave, shaved his head, and inscribed the secret message on his scalp. After the hair grew back, the slave was sent to Athens, and upon arrival, his head was shaved again to retrieve the information.

The ingenuity of this ancient story lies in the successful concealment of sensitive information during the transmission process, hidden beneath seemingly ordinary appearances. However, the challenges faced by the modern digital world are far more complex than those of ancient times. Not only do we need to conceal the existence of information, but we also need to handle this information without exposing its content.

Therefore, Nillion proposes the concept of decentralized "blind computation" networks, similar to how the information of "Persian King Darius" was hidden beneath the slave's hair. Nillion's technology allows high-value data to be stored, transmitted, and processed in a fully encrypted state.

Blind computation generally refers to the collective term for various technologies and methods that perform calculations without revealing input data, encompassing a comprehensive concept that is the product of the integration and development of multiple cryptographic and secure computing technologies, including blind signatures, secure multiparty computation, homomorphic encryption for direct computation of encrypted data, trusted execution environments, zero-knowledge proofs, and more.

What is Nillion

In short, Nillion can be understood as a decentralized secure computing network designed to build a network where high-value data is encrypted throughout the storage, transmission, and computation processes, addressing the current need to "decrypt - compute - re-encrypt" encrypted data during computation.

How it works

Nillion believes that various privacy computing methods such as fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and multiparty computation (MPC) used in the encrypted world each have their unique advantages. Privacy-enhancing technologies (PET) are not a panacea, and all solutions must be organized to achieve the best results. Nillion's goal is to aggregate all PET and create a framework that allows new PET to easily join its orchestration layer.

Nillion's ultimate goal is to create a development environment where developers do not need to know any information about PET and can easily use unique data types, integers, and fixed-point arithmetic to build their privacy-enhanced applications. The compiler will select the best combination of PET to realize the developers' vision.

To achieve this goal, Nillion's important components include the Nada language compiler and the Nillion Network.

Nada Language Compiler

Nillion provides developers with the Python-based MPC programming language "Nada." Developers can use Nada to write programs and use the Nada compiler to compile these programs, then upload the compiled programs to the Nillion Network for execution. Through Nada, developers can manage the storage of high-value privacy data and perform blind computation on this data, keeping the data encrypted throughout the entire process.

Dual-layer network architecture of Nillion Network

Nillion Network is currently in the testing phase, and users can create Nillion wallets through Keplr and Leap to connect to the Nillion testnet. Although its testnet-related activity "Genesis Sprint" ended on July 6, Nillion stated that it will launch the second phase of activities.

The main feature of Nillion Network is its adoption of a dual-layer network architecture, consisting of the core network Petnet and the coordination layer NilChain, to achieve functional separation and decentralized management.

• NilChain is the coordination layer of the Nillion network, coordinating the payment for blind computation and storage operations performed on the network.
• Petnet utilizes privacy-enhancing technologies (PET), including Nillion's, to protect distributed high-value data and perform blind computation.

Funding Status

In December 2022, Nillion completed a $20 million seed round financing at a valuation of $180 million, with Distributed Global leading the investment and participants including AU21, Big Brain Holdings, Chapter One, GSR Markets, HashKey, and others.

Nillion stated that it completed a private token financing round at a valuation of $400 million this year, with Hack VC leading the investment and industry professionals such as Ansem, CL, and angel investors from Worldcoin and LayerZero participating, but the specific amount of financing was not disclosed. In addition, Nillion conducted a community public sale of 35 million NIL tokens (3.5% of the total supply) on the CoinList platform last month, with the community round valuation matching that of the A round private token financing, at $400 million. Furthermore, Nillion's TGE is expected to take place in late August 2024.

Team Lineup

Nillion's team lineup is not to be underestimated. Its development company, Nilogy, was incubated by the CoinList Seed Program. The founder and CTO of Nilogy is Conrad Whelan, a founding engineer at Uber. The Chief Strategy Officer is Andrew Masanto, the founding CMO of Hedera Hashgraph, and the Chief Business Officer is Slava Rubin, the founder of the crowdfunding website Indiegogo. The Chief Legal Officer is Lindsay Danas Cohen, former Deputy General Counsel of Products at Coinbase.

References:

https://docs.nillion.com/nillions-mpc-protocol

https://nillion.com/news/564/https://x.com/FHEOnchain/status/1805680294995149275

https://www.linkedin.com/company/nillionnetwork/people/

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