Fhenix is an innovative project aimed at implementing Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) to enable private smart contract computation in the blockchain. Currently, smart contracts are fully public without private data storage or computation capabilities, limiting blockchain applications to specific use cases that don’t require privacy. Fhenix’s development of a layer-2 network, powered by the FHEVM (an EVM-compatible but private development environment), seeks to address this limitation.
Guy Itzhaki, CEO of Fhenix, has a notable background from Intel, where he was involved in Web3 initiatives and worked on FHE. His journey from Intel to leading Fhenix is a story of evolution from traditional tech to blockchain innovation. At Intel, Itzhaki led confidential compute ecosystem development, partnering with financial institutions on blockchain solutions. His initial foray into blockchain involved building a private blockchain for a major stock exchange.
FHE, as explained by Itzhaki, is an encryption scheme that allows computations on encrypted data without needing to decrypt it first. This groundbreaking approach is transformative for data security, especially in the blockchain domain. FHE’s potential was unrealized for a long time due to its complexity, but recent technological advancements have made it viable for industry use. Fhenix is among the first commercial applications of this technology.
Itzhaki differentiates FHE from Zero Knowledge cryptography like ZK-SNARKs, noting that while ZK proofs aid in scalability, they offer limited support for encrypted execution. FHE, on the other hand, provides higher levels of data security.
Fhenix was designed to be EVM-compatible to facilitate ease of use for developers and users. The decision to implement FHEVM allows developers to build applications without specific knowledge of FHE. This approach has shown promising results in limited-access hackathons.
The roadmap for Fhenix includes launching a public testnet in Q1/24 and a mainnet in early 2025. The implementation of FHE is complex, but Fhenix’s team is well-equipped for the task.
Itzhaki envisions Fhenix transforming data handling in the blockchain world. He believes that for financial entities and corporations to transition to Web3, data confidentiality is essential. Fhenix aims to enable end-to-end data encryption on Ethereum, which could benefit various Web3 applications, including private voting, trustless gaming, decentralized identity, secured payments, and more.
