A curated list of resources for learning about Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) in the context of blockchains. This list includes articles, research papers, tweet threads, code repositories, videos, and more.
A Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is a secure, isolated area within a device or network designed to protect sensitive data and code during execution. It's like a secure vault within your processor that:
- Provides Isolation: Creates a protected space where sensitive code runs separately from the main system
- Ensures Privacy: Keeps both code and data confidential during processing
- Prevents Tampering: Maintains security even if the main system is compromised
- Proves Execution: Generates cryptographic proofs that verify the code ran correctly
- Enables Trust: Allows remote parties to verify computational integrity
A rough analogy is to think of it as a secure room with unbreakable walls, where computations happen privately and everyone can verify the results without seeing inside.
- Cloud Providers
- Hardware
- Applications in Blockchain
- Code Repositories
- Research Papers
- Articles
- Videos
- Tweet Threads
- Confidential Accelerator for AI workloads - Supports Intel TDX with Intel AMX, and NVIDIA H100 GPUs.
- Confidential VMs - Supports AMD SEV, AMD SEV-SNP, and Intel TDX.
- Confidential Space - Supports trust model where the workload author, workload operator, and resource owners are separate, mutually distrusting parties.
- Confidential VM attestation - Attestation support for AMD SEV (vTPM), AMD SEV-SNP (vTPM and TSM), and Intel TDX (vTPM and TSM).
- Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX) - Accelerator to improve the performance of deep-learning training and inference on the CPU
- Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) - Latest Hardware-based TEE architecture from Intel
- Software Guard Extensions (SGX) - Protects data actively being used in the processor and memory by creating a TEE
- Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Trusted I/O (SEV-TIO) - Improved I/O performance and security in AMD SEV-SNP guests
- Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP) - Expands on SEV, adds memory integrity protection to help prevent malicious hypervisor-based attacks
- Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) - Hardware-based memory encryption through the AMD Secure Processor
- H100 TensorCore GPU - Hardware-based trusted execution environment with NVIDIA Hopper and NVIDIA Blackwell architecture support
- Hopper Architecture - Accelerated computing platform for AI
- Blackwell Architecture - Latest HW generation with accelerated computing and generative AI optimizations
- Confidential Compute Architecture (CCA) - Under development. Key component of the Armv9-A architecture
- TrustZone - Isolates critical security firmware, assets and private information for Armv8-M based devices
- Unichain
- The Future of MEV is SUAVE
- Block Building inside SGX
- Running Geth within SGX: Our Experience, Learnings and Code
- SGX-Based Backrunning and Covert Channels
- MEV-SGX - A sealed bid MEV auction design
- Avalanche Bridge - Website, ava-labs GitHub
- Turnkey - Website, tkhq GitHub
- Fireblocks - Website, fireblocks GitHub
- Cycles Money - Website
- Solana Saga Seed Vault - Website, solana-mobile GitHub
- Marlin Protocol - Website, marlinprotocol GitHub
- Phala Network - Website, Phala-Network GitHub
- Automata Network - Website, automata-network GitHub
- Oasis Protocol - Website, oasisprotocol GitHub
- Secret Network - Website, scrtlabs GitHub
- Enclave Markets - Website
- Taiko - Website, taikoxyz GitHub
- Unichain - Website
- sbellem/qtee - Exploring the physical limits of trusted hardware in the classical and quantum settings to achieve security through physics.
- orbstack/orbstack - Fast, light, simple Docker containers & Linux machines
- bpradipt/awesome-confidential-computing - Collection of resources on Confidential Computing
- erayack/awesome-sgx-blockchain - Awesome SGX and TEE on Blockchain Resources
- Dstack-TEE/dstack - Dstack is a developer friendly and security first SDK to simplify the deployment of arbitrary Docker-based apps into TEE.
- marlinprotocol/oyster-serverless - Oyster Serverless is a cutting-edge, high-performance serverless computing platform designed to securely execute JavaScript (JS) and WebAssembly (WASM) code in a highly controlled environment.
- Phala-Network/phala-blockchain - The Phala Network Blockchain, pRuntime and the bridge.
- kata-containers/kata-containers - Kata Containers is an open source project and community working to build a standard implementation of lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs) that feel and perform like containers, but provide the workload isolation and security advantages of VMs.
- taikoxyz/raiko - Multi-proofs for Taiko. SNARKS, STARKS and Trusted Execution Enclave.
- confidential-containers/guest-components - Confidential Containers Guest Tools and Components
- kinvolk/azure-cvm-tooling - Libraries and tools for Confidential Computing on Azure
- HyperEnclave/hyperenclave - An Open and Cross-platform Trusted Execution Environment.
- mobilecoinfoundation/mobilecoin - Private payments for mobile devices
- integritee-network/worker - Integritee off-chain worker and sidechain validateer
- capsule-corp-ternoa/ternoa-node - Ternoa's Node Implementation
- automata-network/automata - Automata Network is a modular attestation layer that extends machine trust to Ethereum with TEE Coprocessors.
- apache/incubator-teaclave-sgx-sdk - Apache Teaclave (incubating) SGX SDK helps developers to write Intel SGX applications in the Rust programming language, and also known as Rust SGX SDK.
- apache/incubator-teaclave - Apache Teaclave (incubating) is an open source universal secure computing platform, making computation on privacy-sensitive data safe and simple.
- scrtlabs/incubator-teaclave-sgx-sdk - Rust SGX SDK provides the ability to write Intel SGX applications in Rust Programming Language. Fork of
apache/incubator-teaclave-sgx-sdk.
- google/go-tpm-tools - Go packages built on go-tpm providing a high-level API for using TPMs
- google/go-sev-guest - go-sev-guest offers a library to wrap the /dev/sev-guest device in Linux, as well as a library for attestation verification of fundamental components of an attestation report.
- google/go-tdx-guest - go-tdx-guest offers a library to wrap the /dev/tdx-guest device in Linux, as well as a library for attestation verification of fundamental components of an attestation quote.
- matter-labs/vault-auth-tee - Hashicorp Vault plugin for authenticating Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) like SGX enclaves
- usbarmory/GoTEE - Go Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)
- iotexproject/w3bstream - An offchain computing layer for DePIN verifiable data computation, supporting a variety of validity proofs including Zero Knowledge (ZK), Trusted Execution Environments (TEE), and Multi-party Computation (MPC)
- oasisprotocol/oasis-core - Performant and Confidentiality-Preserving Smart Contracts + Blockchains
- hyperledger/fabric-private-chaincode - FPC enables Confidential Chaincode Execution for Hyperledger Fabric using Intel SGX.
- NixOS/nix - Nix, the purely functional package manager
- microsoft/azure-tee-attestation-samples - Trusted Execution Environment examples leveraging attestations on Azure
- intel/linux-sgx - Intel SGX for Linux
- lsds/Teechain - Teechain: A Secure Payment Network with Asynchronous Blockchain Access
- skalenetwork/sgxwallet - sgxwallet is the first-ever opensource high-performance hardware secure crypto wallet that is based on Intel SGX technology. First opensource product on Intel SGX whitelist. Scales to 100,000+ transactions per second. Currently supports ETH and SKALE, and will support BTC in the future. Sgxwallet is under heavy development and use by SKALE network.
- hyperledger-labs/private-data-objects - The Private Data Objects lab provides technology for confidentiality-preserving, off-chain smart contracts.
- iisec-suzaki/optee-ra - OP-TEE Remote Attestation
- pietroborrello/CustomProcessingUnit - The first analysis framework for CPU microcode
- openenclave/openenclave - SDK for developing enclaves
- deislabs/mystikos - Tools and runtime for launching unmodified container images in Trusted Execution Environments
- openenclave/openenclave - SDK for developing enclaves
- mofanv/PPFL - Privacy-preserving Federated Learning with Trusted Execution Environments
- inclavare-containers/inclavare-containers - A novel container runtime, aka confidential container, for cloud-native confidential computing and enclave runtime ecosystem.
- ethernity-cloud/mvp-pox-node - Ethernity Cloud Node
- tkhq/sdk - Turnkey TypeScript SDK
- M. U. Sardar, A. Niemi, H. Tschofenig, and T. Fossati, "Towards Validation of TLS 1.3 Formal Model and Vulnerabilities in Intel's RA-TLS Protocol", 2024 - IEEE
- J. Zhu, H. Yin, P. Deng, and S. Zhou, "Confidential Computing on nVIDIA H100 GPU: A Performance Benchmark Study", 2024 - arXiv
- A. Sunny, N, Shrivastava, S. and R. Sarangi, "SecScale: A Scalable and Secure Trusted Execution Environment for Servers", 2024 - arXiv
- H. Eichner, D. Ramage, K. Bonawitz, D. Huba et. al., "Confidential Federated Computations", 2024 - arXiv
- X. Zhang, K. Qin, S. Qu, T. Wang, C. Zhang, and D. Gu "Teamwork Makes TEE Work: Open and Resilient Remote Attestation on Decentralized Trust", 2024 - arXiv
- Y. Xian, L. Zhou, J. Jiang, B. Wang, H. Huo, and P. Liu, "A Distributed Efficient Blockchain Oracle Scheme for Internet of Things", 2023 - arXiv
- A. P. Kalapaaking, I. Khalil, M. S. Rahman, M. Atiquzzaman, X. Yi, and M. Almashor, "Blockchain-based Federated Learning with Secure Aggregation in Trusted Execution Environment for Internet-of-Things", 2023 - arXiv
- M. Schneider, R.J. Masti, S. Shinde, S. Capkun, and R. Perez, "SoK: Hardware-supported Trusted Execution Environments", 2022 - arXiv
- R. Li, Q. Wang, Q. Wang, D. Galindo, and M. Ryan, "SoK: TEE-assisted Confidential Smart Contract", 2022 - arXiv
- E. Puschner, T. Moos, S. Becker, C. Kison, A. Moradi, C. Paar, "Red Team vs. Blue Team: A Real-World Hardware Trojan Detection Case Study Across Four Modern CMOS Technology Generations", 2022 - Cryptology ePrint Archive
- R. Karanjai, L. Xu, L. Chen, F. Zhang, Z. Gao, and W. Shi, "Lessons Learned from Blockchain Applications of Trusted Execution Environments and Implications for Future Research", 2022 - arXiv
- C. Liu, H. Guo, M. Xu, S. Wang, D. Yu, J. Yu, and X. Cheng, "Extending On-chain Trust to Off-chain -- Trustworthy Blockchain Data Collection using Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)", 2021 - arXiv
- D. Natarajan, A. Loveless, W. Dai, and R. Dreslinski, “CHEX-MIX: Combining Homomorphic Encryption with Trusted Execution Environments for Two-party Oblivious Inference in the Cloud”, 2021. - Cryptology ePrint Archive
- Z. Bao, Q. Wang, W. Shi, L. Wang, H. Lei, and B. Chen, "When Blockchain Meets SGX: An Overview, Challenges, and Open Issues", 2020 - IEEE
- A. Nilsson, P. N. Bideh, and J. Brorsson, “A Survey of Published Attacks on Intel SGX”, 2020. - arXiv
- K. Murdock, D. Oswald, F. D. Garcia, J. Van Bulck, D. Gruss, and F. Piessens, “Plundervolt: Software-based Fault Injection Attacks against Intel SGX”, 2020. - IEEE
- R. Cheng, F. Zhang, J. Kos, W. He, N. Hynes, N. Johnson, A. Juels, and A. Miller, "Ekiden: A Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contracts", 2019 - IEEE
- G. Kaptchuk, I. Miers, and M. Green, "Giving State to the Stateless: Augmenting Trustworthy Computation with Ledgers" , 2017 - Cryptology ePrint Archive
- J. Lind, O. Naor, I. Eyal, F. Kelbert, P. Pietzuch, and E. Gun Sirer, "Teechain: A Secure Payment Network with Asynchronous Blockchain Access", 2017. - arXiv
- TEE Bible - Your First Stop for TEE in Crypto
- What is a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)? - Halborn
- Blockchain Privacy and Security in Data Computation
- Trustless Execution Environments - David Atterman
- Chapter 3 - Verifiable Off-chain Compute: Enabling an Instagram-like experience for Web3 - Florin Digital
- Blockchain x TEE: Why Various Forefront Projects are Adopting TEE - TOKI
- Why trusted execution environments will be integral to proof-of-stake blockchains
- Intel SGX Explained
- Demystifying SGX — Part 1 - Obscuro Labs
- A few notes on AWS Nitro Enclaves: Attack surface - Trail of Bits Blog
- Building Secure Ethereum Blocks on Minimal Intel TDX Confidential VMs - Flashbots Collective
- TDX Security For BOB Searchers, Flashbots
- Sirrah: Speedrunning a TEE Coprocessor
- Securing TEE Apps: A Developer's Guide - Bedlam Research
- Early Thoughts on Decentralized Root-of-Trust - Flashbots Collective
- TEE-based Smart Contracts and Sealing Pitfalls
- 4 Ways to Compare Trusted Execution Environments and Zero-Knowledge Proofs
- Drawbacks In FHE Blockchain And How TEE Can Help It - Flashbots Collective
- How Secret Network Uses SGX
- Trusted Execution Environments and the Polkadot Ecosystem
- Intel SGX and Blockchain: The iExec End-to-End Trusted Execution Solution
- Blockchains in Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs)
- Blockchains + TEEs Day 1 Summary
- Blockchains + TEEs Day 2 Summary
- How to Win Friends and TEE-fluence People - Ethan Buchman, Modular Summit 2024
- The TEE Stack - Andrew Miller, Modular Summit 2024
- Private Smart Contracts are Worth the Price of the SGX - Andrew Miller, ETHDenver 2023
- Protected Order Flow for Fair Transaction-Ordering in a Profit-Seeking World - Kushal Babel, MEV-SBC 2023
- Enabling Cross Chain Transfers Using SGX - Michael Kaplan, Avalanche Summit 2022
- Trusted Execution Environments Meet the Blockchain - Ittay Eyal, Simons Institute 2019
- DEVMOS 2024: Dylan Kawalec (Osmosis), 'Building Decentralized Frontends', Modular Summit 2024
- What apps are unlocked by the TEE stack - Xinyuan Sun, Modular Summit 2024
- Parallelized Confidential Computing - Yannik Schrade, Fil Dev Summit 2024
- TEE for Blockchain Applications - Ari Juels, a16z crypto 2023
- SGX Panel 2023: Andrew Miller, Jonathan Passerat Palmbach, Phil Daian, Justin Drake