Enigma Launches Second Testnet for 'Secret Contract' Blockchain

Data privacy startup Enigma is officially launching its second test network for ethereum developers.

While the code for the second testnet developer release has been up on GitHub since last week, the Enigma team announced today new developer guidelines and walk-through documentation to supplement the release.

In interview with CoinDesk, Tor Bair - head of growth and marketing for Enigma - positioned the launch as a way for more developers than before to build specialized smart contracts called "Secret contracts." The Enigma project - originally incubated at MIT Media Labs - aims to create a secure, off-chain environment able to process sensitive and private blockchain data with end-to-end encryption.

These secret contracts are able to perform off-chain computations on encrypted data leveraging the Enigma protocol.

While the protocol is not yet live on ethereum mainnet, the release sets up developers to start building code that can be then immediately deployed onto Enigma's first networked protocol - dubbed Discovery - once officially activated.

For a variety of different reasons, the Enigma team announced back in September a delayed timeline to better secure the long-term interests of the project.

The next major milestone for the Enigma project is a subsequent launch on a public ethereum test network, akin to the Ropsten or Rinkeby network.

These nodes - similar in behavior to miners on a traditional proof-of-work blockchain - are rewarded for contributing computing power to the network by receiving network tokens.

In this case, "Worker nodes" on Enigma are rewarded ENG tokens which presently possess a total market capitalization of close to $40 million.

During Enigma's next code release on a public ethereum testnet blockchain, there will be what Bair calls a "Genesis game" in which people who want to run Enigma nodes will compete to be among the first 50 nodes whitelisted for Discovery mainnet launch.