Oasis launches Ethereum-compatible privacy blockchain Sapphire

Decentralized applications could tap into improved privacy features as blockchain firm Oasis launches its confidential EVM-compatible blockchain Sapphire.

Sapphire and the Oasis Privacy Layer (OPL) are now live, allowing existing decentralized applications (DApp) on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) networks to make use of the blockchain’s privacy-first features without having to carry out cross-chain swaps for respective tokens.

Cointelegraph reached out to Oasis to unpack the core components of the Sapphire blockchain and how it could help drive cross-chain Web3 development focused on privacy features for smart contracts.

Oasis Foundation director Jernej Kos said that OPL in particular allows developers that have built DApps on any EVM network to integrate a variety of Sapphire’s features without having to migrate to the Oasis blockchain:

“Being fully EVM-compatible means that developers can build private smart contracts in an environment that they are already familiar with, for example Solidity smart contracts running on the EVM as known from Ethereum.”

Kos added that the functionality also improves the ability to deploy DApps across different chains and make them compatible. Another example would be having a core DAO smart contract on Ethereum (ETH) while handling fully private voting on Sapphire, with end-results being sent back to the core DAO contract.

“In this way the privacy capabilities of Sapphire are exposed to any other chain.”

According to the Oasis Foundation director, the majority of DApps being developed on Oasis are privacy-centric and enable users with full control over their on-chain data to control how that gets shared and accessed. This is also evident in a list of different tools and platforms that have been built within the Oasis ecosystem.

Related: Oasis Foundation launches $160M development fund

Kos highlighted confidential decentralized exchanges, privacy-enabled blockchain gaming, account abstration, confidential NFTs, private voting, sealed-bid auctions, key management and decentralized identification as use cases that have come to the fore from builders on the Oasis chain.

Magazine: Here’s how Ethereum’s ZK-rollups can become interoperable