Automata collaborates with Babylon to advance TEE research and enhance multi-prover security with staked Bitcoin
One way to view the leap in technology is through the lens of hardware. Specialized hardware known as Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) are secure memory zones capable of isolating code and data, even from administrators with root-level privileges. It is this same property that makes it possible for users to demand the same degree of privacy and verifiability assured by TEE solutions from existing blockchain models.
We are excited to work with Babylon, a trustless and self-custodial staking protocol for Bitcoin, to help unlock a new dimension of open innovation with hardware-based TEEs.
Babylon’s Bitcoin security sharing protocols
Babylon envisions a Bitcoin-secured decentralized world and develops Bitcoin security sharing protocols to achieve it. The latest advancement is a trustless and non-custodial Bitcoin staking protocol. This protocol turns the 1 trillion worth of idle Bitcoins into a staking asset for any PoS system, significantly enhancing their security. In return, staked Bitcoins can earn PoS rewards. The protocol does not require the Bitcoin holders to send their Bitcoins to any third-party Bitcoin address and thus is trustless and non-custodial.
Securing multi-prover infrastructure with staked Bitcoin
As interest within the blockchain community shifts towards zero-knowledge rollups, driven by their efficiency and enhanced privacy, the need for a multi-prover system becomes increasingly apparent. These systems are essential for maintaining decentralized systems’ integrity, ensuring that only correct proofs are accepted. Our implementation of a multi-prover rollup system with Scroll marks a step in the right direction, employing Intel SGX to augment the proof verification process.
The integration of Babylon’s Bitcoin staking mechanism into the multi-prover infrastructure introduces an additional layer of cryptoeconomic security, adding a substantial financial cost to deter potential attackers. Furthermore, it provides financial incentives for prover operators to act honestly and efficiently.
By combining the integrity-enforcing capabilities of TEEs with the robust economic security provided by Bitcoin staking, our collaboration with Babylon lays the groundwork for minimizing trust assumptions and maximizing security across the blockchain ecosystem.
Furthering TEE research with Babylon
The application of TEEs in Web3 is gaining traction, and there is an opportunity for industry research to take bold, big swings and build something transformational. Recognizing the potential to enhance the security and integrity of Babylon’s ecosystem significantly, our collaboration is focused on investigating and leveraging the transformative capabilities of TEEs.
Our work with leading projects underscores our commitment to advancing the application of TEEs in blockchain:
- Suave TEE Coprocessor by Flashbots utilizes Automata-V3-DCAP repository, an open-source Solidity library, to verify the remote attestation generated by an Intel SGX enclave.
- Microsoft Azure is collaborating with Automata to broaden visibility into what fully-attested confidential enclaves can do in building and managing more powerful blockchain applications, like 1RPC.
- TEE Prover by Automata and Scroll is a multi-prover rollup system and the first live implementation of Intel SGX as an independent proof alongside SNARK verification.
About Automata Network
Automata Network is a modular attestation layer that extends machine-level trust to Ethereum by leveraging optimistic rollups and zero-knowledge proofs in its Proof of Machinehood approach. The application-specific rollup allows on-chain verification for out-of-protocol computation, which creates an unbroken chain of trust that extends upwards through the entire Web3 stack.
