§00Confidential execution layer · Solana
Compute on data
you never see.
An encrypted execution layer on Solana. Fully homomorphic encryption and machine learning over data that is never decrypted - not by validators, not by us.
Ciphertext inspector
live
Plaintext · client only
412.75 SOL
Token balance
On the wire
3.1 KB
~248× expansion
Validators see this. Nothing else.
TFHE · 128-bit
§01Devnet, today
Privacy with a latency budget, not a research paper.
Fully homomorphic encryption spent a decade being too slow to matter. It stopped being too slow. These are v0.4.1 devnet measurements.
210ms
Median confidential transfer
encrypt → evaluate → threshold-decrypt, devnet p50
3.1KB
Ciphertext per encrypted balance
TFHE, 64-bit integer, packed
64/128
Threshold decryption committee
no single node can decrypt state
0bytes
Plaintext written on-chain
inputs, state and outputs stay sealed
§02Architecture
Four layers.
Only one of them
ever holds a key.
Latens does not replace Solana. It attaches an encrypted data path to it, so ordering and settlement stay where liquidity already is.
- 01
Client keyring
Keys never leave the device. The client encrypts inputs and holds the only path to a plaintext result.
- 02
Solana settlement
Ordering, fees and account ownership stay on Solana. Latens adds a ciphertext field, not a new chain.
- 03
Evaluator mesh
Stateless workers that apply homomorphic circuits to ciphertext. They can compute; they cannot read.
- 04
Threshold committee
A t-of-n committee holds shares of the decryption key. Output is revealed only to the address that owns it.
§03Evidence
What it costs to never decrypt.
Three questions decide whether encrypted execution is usable: is the trend going the right way, where does the time actually go, and does it scale out.
§03.1Figure
The cost of a homomorphic operation, 2016 → 2026
Bootstrapping - the step that resets noise and makes unbounded computation possible - has fallen by three orders of magnitude.
- Bootstrapping
- Encrypted MLP inference
Public TFHE/CKKS benchmark literature 2016-2024; 2026 modelled from the Latens devnet accelerator roadmap. Log scale.
§03.2Figure
Where a confidential request spends 210 ms
Consensus and threshold decryption are fixed costs. Only the evaluation term grows with circuit depth.
- Client encrypt
- Consensus + route
- Homomorphic evaluate
- Threshold decrypt
Latens devnet v0.4.1, 10k samples per operation, p50 milliseconds. Consensus term measured against Solana devnet.
§03.3Figure
Throughput against evaluator count
Encrypted execution scales out linearly until the decryption committee becomes the bottleneck at ~100 nodes.
- Latens (encrypted)
- Plaintext baseline
Encrypted throughput scales linearly to 100 evaluator nodes, then saturates on committee bandwidth. Devnet v0.4.1, transactions/second.
§04Alternatives
Everything else asks you to trust something.
Enclaves ask you to trust a chip vendor. Zero-knowledge proofs hide your inputs but cannot compute over someone else's. Homomorphic encryption removes the question.
| Property | Plaintext L1 | TEE / enclave | ZK proofs | Latens (FHE) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data hidden from validators | no | yes | yes | yes |
| Arbitrary compute on hidden data | yes | yes | no | yes |
| No trusted hardware vendor | yes | no | yes | yes |
| Shared state between mutually blind parties | yes | no | no | yes |
| Post-quantum assumptions | no | no | no | yes |
§05Roadmap
Shipping order.
Each phase is gated on the previous one being measured, not announced.
- P0shipped
Devnet
TFHE evaluator, 32-node threshold committee, encrypted SPL-compatible transfers.
- P1active
Sealed programs
Rust SDK for encrypted account state; homomorphic ALU exposed as a Solana CPI target.
- P2next
Encrypted inference
Quantised transformer blocks over ciphertext; model weights sealed to the committee.
- P3planned
Mainnet-beta
128-node committee, hardware acceleration, permissionless evaluator onboarding.
§06Next
Encrypt a number. Add to it without ever opening it.
The sandbox runs a simulation of the full pipeline in your browser - keygen, encryption, homomorphic evaluation, noise budget, threshold decryption - with the timings we measure on devnet.