The Network has two main architectural components, the consensus layer and the ParaTime layer.
The consensus layer is a scalable, high-throughput, secure, proof-of-stake consensus run by a decentralized set of validator nodes.
The ParaTime layer hosts many parallel runtimes (ParaTimes), each representing a replicated compute environment with shared state.
The Sapphire ParaTime is Oasis confidential EVM Compatible ParaTime providing a smart contract development environment with EVM compatibility.
As the official confidential EVM-compatible ParaTime on the Oasis Network, Sapphire allows for:
Confidential state, end-to-end encryption, confidential randomness
EVM compatibility
Easy integration with EVM-based dApps, such as DeFi, NFT, Metaverse and crypto gaming
Scalability — increased throughput of transactions
Low-cost — 99%+ lower fees than Ethereum
Cross-chain bridge to enable cross-chain interoperability (upcoming)
Web3 Gateway To get started building on Sapphire ParaTime, you can use our public Web3 gateway, fully compatible with Ethereum's Web3 gateway. Mainnet
RPC HTTP endpoint: https://sapphire.oasis.io
RPC WebSockets endpoint: wss://sapphire.oasis.io/ws
Chain ID:
Hex: 0x5afe
Decimal: 23294
Block explorer: https://explorer.sapphire.oasis.io
When we launched Sapphire on testnet in Q3, we opened the door for EVM developers to build confidential dApps in a language they already knew well. Sapphire offers a solution to the blockchain privacy paradox and showcases the flexibility of the Oasis Network and its customizable ParaTime layer with the creation of a confidential EVM developer environment.
But a confidential EVM ParaTime is only the beginning. Sapphire is the key building block of a privacy layer for Web3, including all EVM chains and dApps– this is the Oasis Privacy Layer.
With the Oasis Privacy Layer, popular dApps, on all familiar EVM chains, can utilize Oasis’ privacy technology without having to migrate their entire application and user base to a different chain.
Let’s see how Sapphire makes this possible.
Sapphire in action
The Oasis Network was created for builders. For Web3, the tools of the trade are Solidity, EVM and the wealth of related tools developed by the community for building robust and secure dApps on EVM-compatible chains. So what’s missing? While smart contracts provide the benefits of transparent and auditable application logic and state, the fact that all on-chain state and transactions are completely public makes it impossible to move critically important parts of many applications on-chain.
Let’s see how Sapphire eliminates these limitations with a fun game!
Ever played Wordle? The addictive word game that went viral and was later purchased by the New York Times? We invite you to try out Wordleish: a simple blockchain-based game with a similar principle: https://wordleish.pages.dev/games/2
The objective of Wordle (and Wordleish) is to guess the five-letter secret word using feedback from successive guesses–colored tiles indicate when letters and their locations match the solution. Wordleish adds another dimension by enabling players to compete to solve these puzzles on-chain. The puzzles are stored in a smart contract, and the first player to solve each puzzle is immortalized on-chain.
What happens if we try to build Wordleish on a traditional EVM network? Two important limitations take all the fun out of the competition. First, if we store the solution to the puzzle in on-chain storage, it’s not actually secret–anyone can spoil the game by simply querying the contract’s public storage. In addition, because transactions are completely public, when a player submits a transaction containing the correct answer, they are vulnerable to getting “frontrun” by other players.
Sapphire solves both of these problems through private smart contract state and encrypted transactions. This is why Sapphire shines for Web3 builders wanting to create new privacy-enabled dApps.
But what about existing dApps that could also benefit from on-chain privacy? What about dApps that would like to conduct secret ballots in their DAOs, or private NFT lotteries, or Decentralized ID systems that manage sensitive personal information?
Sapphire is still the answer, thanks to the Oasis Privacy Layer.
How does the Oasis Privacy Layer work?
We just saw how a novel application like Wordleish can be built on Sapphire, but how can existing dApps on other networks access on-chain privacy? Through the Oasis Privacy Layer, which is a gateway to Sapphire’s privacy features for dApps on other EVM chains.
To understand how the Oasis Privacy Layer makes this possible, let’s consider another example of a privacy feature that we could add to existing dApps. Imagine we have a DAO hosted on another EVM network, and we want to add an option for “secret ballot” proposals. We still want a “trustless” on-chain vote, but we want to allow votes to be submitted in secret, with only the final outcome being revealed.
The first step is to deploy a secret ballot smart contract on the EVM-compatible Sapphire runtime. Then, the DAO contract on the home chain can initiate voting for a proposal by sending a message to the secret ballot contract over a message-passing bridge. DAO members submit their votes in secret as encrypted messages, and when voting ends, the final result is reported back to the DAO on the home chain via the bridge.
Note that transactions on Sapphire require gas fees to be paid in Oasis’s native token (ROSE). To ensure a seamless user experience, a gas relayer can be used to forward users’ signed messages to Sapphire and avoid the need for end users to acquire ROSE to pay for gas. The entire flow is completed with only a single extra click by the user to approve payment to the gas relayer in ETH/USDT/etc!