Many are shocked by disclosures of invasions of privacy from corporations and governments alike. A startup blockchain project now offers an innovative value proposition and a glimmer of hope for digital privacy. Enigma (ENG) recently announced a research and development partnership with Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and launched its initial testnet last week.
Enigma is a nonprofit startup that recognizes that a privacy protocol is the key to transforming the social media space. Enigma's mission is to solve blockchain's two issues of scalability and privacy. The project's in-progress Enigma protocol turns smart contracts into "secret contracts" that hide inputted data from other nodes in the Enigma network.
Enigma's main features will be off-chain storage and privacy-enforcing computation. The distributed storage means data will be encrypted, private, and linkable to the main blockchain. Off-chain storage helps address scalability and access to large amounts of data. Its multi-party computation will use advanced cryptography techniques to enable end-to-end secure decentralized applications.
One of Enigma's foremost real-world applications is a data marketplace. A decentralized market for personal data would allow people to buy and sell their data but also ensure privacy. Unlike Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), which sells personal data access to advertisers who create micro-targeted ads, a decentralized data market would let people choose how to monetize and protect their data.
Enigma was created by a team at MIT. CEO and cofounder Guy Zyskind served as the CTO of three tech firms before working at Enigma. Chief Product Officer and cofounder Can Kisagun worked at McKinsey and cofounded Eximchain prior to Enigma. The team also boasts of talented software engineers, most with over ten years of experience.
ENG is currently priced around $1.45 and has a market capitalization of $109 million. Its total supply is 150 million ENG, and its circulating supply is almost 75 million ENG. ENG is tradable on the Binance, Bittrex, and Huobi exchanges. It is a small-cap coin with low volume of less than $3 million.
Many societal changes are required in order for Enigma to succeed in its ambitious goals. While Enigma's primary value proposition, digital privacy, is enormously precious, external factors will affect its future potential. First, Western consumers and users, who have grown complacent about big tech's data exploitation practices, need to collectively awaken and realize how companies like Facebook profit from their data. Second, the epiphany needs to translate into massive consumer demand for open-source privacy-focused services and privacy-enabling technologies. Finally, Enigma needs to effectively provide and maintain a next-generation decentralized social network that is actually user-friendly and easy for the average person to understand.
The Intel partnership and testnet release are wonderful news. Ultimately, whether Enigma's grand project will succeed in the long run depends on people's desire for privacy in the digital age.
The author does not hold any positions in any of the securities above.