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Obscuro Knowledgebase
Welcome to the Obscuro Knowledgebase!
We have put together some guidelines and FAQs that will help you understand Obscuro better. Use the GitHub search at the top of the browser window to search wiki body text.
To format these pages correctly use the headings as follows: Heading 1 (H1): a knowledgebase section, e.g. Obscuro Concepts Heading 2 (H2): a new entry under a knowledgebase section, e.g. Optimistic Rollups Heading 2 (H2): a heading to assist with the flow of text under you H2 entry
In markdown this looks like:
# Obscuro Concepts
## Optimistic Rollups
### How optimistic rollups work
Obscuro is a general-purpose, privacy-first Ethereum L2 solution that sits between Optimistic and ZK rollups. It leverages Trusted Execution Environments to benefit from the best of both worlds.
Obscuro offers the same functionality as Ethereum and indeed leverages Ethereum for security, except it also solves the following four problems:
Privacy - solving for privacy will unlock hundreds of new use cases.
MEV - moving value back into the hands of end-users.
Scalability - we've developed a novel protocol called Proof of Block Inclusion (or POBI for short), enabling Obscuro to scale massively.
Gas - with no Proof of Work and by leveraging Proof of Block Inclusion, gas on Obscuro is a fraction of what it is on L1.
We're different in a few ways. Obscuro is a general-purpose L2 on Ethereum. Think Optimistic-based L2s; these allow you to redeploy/deploy existing/new Ethereum Dapps, save massively on gas and transact a lot faster, except they come with long withdrawal times and are generally centralised. ZK-Rollups, the other type of L2 offers similar advantages; they have no withdrawal delay, however, they are not general-purpose. Currently, all rollup solutions are centralised.
We designed Obscuro to sit in the sweet spot between Optimistic and ZK rollups. In addition, with Obscuro, out of the box, you'll be part of a completely decentralised network, get complete data confidentially (private balances, transacting, etc.), and MEV prevention baked in.
Rather than build an entirely new L1 network, Obscuro is an L2 built on Ethereum, so we leverage the security, adoption, and liquidity of Ethereum. This allows developers to build privacy-first applications while leveraging existing Ethereum smart contracts and existing developer tooling.
Obscuro leverages Ethereum, the public blockchain with the greatest adoption, legitimacy, security, and liquidity, as a base layer to handle security and data availability and manage the inflow and outflow of value.
ZK-proofs are a fascinating technology that provides another potential path forward for privacy. However, they're not currently suitable for decentralised, general-purpose smart contracts. They're also expensive and not yet well understood.
No. Obscuro doesn't leverage TEEs for integrity, only for privacy. At the very most, an incredibly advanced hacker with access to specialised resources might be able to leak data on what's happening on the network.
Yes and no. All hacks on TEEs have taken place under laboratory conditions, often with funding from TEE manufacturers, and have been quickly patched. There are no known hacks in the wild.
A rollup is aggregated transaction data from an L2 posted as a single blob onto Ethereum. This allows all smart contract logic to run on the L2 in a highly-scalable way and then secured by the L1.
POBI is a novel solution that solves the fair leader election problem and the L1/L2 synchronisation problem. It enables true L2 decentralisation along with fast deposit and withdrawal times. Read the whitepaper section on POBI for a full explanation.
Aggregators are a special set of nodes on the network that are responsible for validating transactions and publishing the rollups back to L1.
Yes. A key innovation in the Obscuro protocol is that it's truly decentralised. Anyone can (and is encouraged!) become an Aggregator. All you need do is run the software and provide a stake to back up the protocol.
Obscuro is completely decentralised, in the sense that Aggregators are free to join and leave the network, similar to Miners on Bitcoin and Ethereum. Trust is distributed across the network and not centralised in the hands of any particular actor.
Using the Obscuro bridge. Like other Rollups, Obscuro offers an Ethereum based bridge that is secured using the POBI protocol. Consensus across the whole Obscuro network is required to authorise a withdrawal adding an additional layer of security.
Yes. Obscuro is fully Turing-complete, just like Ethereum. In fact, it runs on the EVM. Smart Contracts can be programmed using the primary Ethereum smart contract languages, Serpent and Solidity.
Yes. One of the problems L2s have when it comes to NFTs is the slow withdrawal times, and market makers cannot step-in, in the same way as they can with ERC20 tokens due to NFTs being non-fungible.
Transactions on Obsuro are paid for using OBX, the native utility token of the network. The payment covers the cost of nodes running the network.
OBX has four utilities:
- To provide a block reward to incentivise users to operate Obscuro nodes during bootstrapping of the Obscuro network.
- A medium in which users can pay fees and node operators can pay their stake and receive rewards to cover operational costs.
- A means to vote on proposals for changes to Obscuro via a governance model.
- A means to fund and incentivise the ongoing development of the Obscuro ecosystem via development opportunities, grants and competitions.
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