Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.skale.space/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
What Is Programmable Privacy?
SKALE’s Programmable Privacy suite brings composable onchain confidentiality to smart contracts. Built on threshold encryption and integrated at the protocol layer, it lets contracts define who can see what and when — all while staying fully EVM compatible. Unlike simple encryption schemes that act as an all-or-nothing blanket, Programmable Privacy is composable: decryption rules, access controls, and confidentiality policies are expressed in Solidity, enabling private state, selective disclosure, conditional execution, and confidential token logic.Why Programmable Privacy?
Public blockchains expose everything — transaction amounts, contract calls, user intent. This creates problems for real-world applications:- Confidentiality — Payroll, supply chain, lending, and gaming all handle data that shouldn’t be public
- Competition — Competitors can monitor contract interactions, extract positions, and front-run strategies
- Compliance — Regulated use cases (e.g., securities, identity) require controlled disclosure, not full transparency
- User experience — Public balances and transaction histories deter adoption for consumer and enterprise use
Features
| Feature | Status | Chain Availability |
|---|---|---|
| Encrypted Transactions | Available | SKALE Base, SKALE Base Sepolia |
| Conditional Transactions | Available | SKALE Base, SKALE Base Sepolia |
| Re-encryption | Beta | SKALE Base Sepolia |
| Confidential Tokens | Beta | SKALE Base Sepolia |
Note: All Programmable Privacy features are currently available on testnet (SKALE Base Sepolia). Mainnet deployment is coming soon. For mainnet access or questions, reach out to the SKALE team on Discord.
How It Works
Programmable Privacy extends SKALE with threshold encryption built into consensus:- Encrypt — Your wallet or contract encrypts data using SKALE’s threshold public key
- Submit — Encrypted data is sent to a precompile or smart contract
- Finalize — Consensus finalizes the encrypted data without seeing contents
- Decrypt — After finality, the validator committee runs threshold decryption
- Execute — Decrypted data executes normally in the EVM
Key Properties
Threshold Decryption
No single node can decrypt data. The validator committee jointly decrypts using threshold BLS — a minimum number of validators must collaborate. Keys rotate each epoch using onchain DKG.Zero Trust
You don’t need to trust any single party. The cryptography ensures:- No early decryption — Requires threshold of validators
- No selective decryption — All or nothing per epoch
- No single point of failure — Distributed key generation
EVM Compatible
Programmable Privacy works with existing tooling:- MetaMask, WalletConnect, and other wallets
- Foundry, Hardhat, and other development frameworks
- Ethers.js, Viem, and other web3 libraries
- Existing Solidity contracts (no changes needed for encrypted transactions)
MEV Resistance (Secondary Benefit)
Encrypting transaction fields also removes the information MEV bots need to front-run or sandwich users — intent is hidden until finality, and validators can’t filter by content. This is a useful side effect of protocol-level encryption, not the primary design goal.Learn More
- Encrypted Transactions — Hide transaction payloads during mempool and consensus
- Conditional Transactions — Smart contracts that request decryption on-demand
- Re-encryption — Encrypt data for specific viewers or private onchain state
- Confidential Tokens — ERC20 tokens with encrypted balances