Workshop on Confidential Computing: Future core component of secure Blockchain networks (CONFIDENTIAL)

Scope

This workshop focuses on the principles, technologies, and emerging practices of Confidential Computing, with particular emphasis on hardware- and software-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), secure enclaves, and privacy-preserving computation techniques. The scope includes architectural designs, threat models, trust assumptions, performance and scalability considerations, as well as real-world deployment challenges of confidential computing solutions across edge, cloud, and hybrid environments. Particular attention is given to adversarial settings in which infrastructure operators, execution platforms, or system participants cannot be fully trusted.

Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) provide decentralization, transparency, and trust minimization; however, these properties often come at the cost of limited confidentiality. Public execution models expose transaction data, smart contract logic, and intermediate computation states, making it difficult to support applications involving sensitive data, proprietary algorithms, or regulatory constraints. As DLT ecosystems evolve, they increasingly rely on off-chain computation, layer-2 solutions, or hybrid architectures, which introduce new trust assumptions and expand the attack surface. In this context, Confidential Computing has emerged as a practical and increasingly adopted paradigm to protect data in use. By enabling isolated and verifiable execution even on untrusted infrastructure, confidential computing technologies offer concrete mechanisms to enhance privacy, integrity, and trust in decentralized systems. These techniques are already being explored in blockchain-related components such as oracles, rollups, cross-chain bridges, confidential validators, and secure key management services. For this reason, the central objective of the workshop is to explore different aspects of confidential computing techniques that can be leveraged to strengthen and extend DLTs.

We welcome contributions on Confidential Computing, including work that is validated outside a specific blockchain or distributed ledger context, provided that the results are clearly applicable or transferable to blockchain and DLT settings. This includes, but is not limited to, trusted execution environments, secure enclaves, confidential off-chain computation, remote attestation, and trusted system services that can support blockchain-related components such as smart contracts, wallets, oracles, bridges, rollups, cloud-based blockchain infrastructure, IoT integrations, supply chain systems, and other critical or decentralized infrastructures.

Topics

Submissions may include theoretical insights, experimental results, or deployment-driven studies. We invite original research papers, experience reports, reproducible benchmarks, and systematization of knowledge (SoK) contributions. The list below is indicative rather than exhaustive; we welcome contributions that fit within the broader domain of Confidential Computing, even if they do not align precisely with the topics listed. We particularly value work that can be transferred to future confidential blockchain and distributed ledger deployments, but early-stage or foundational research with clear potential impact is also encouraged.

A) Building Blocks and Cryptographic Primitives for Trusted and Confidential Execution

Privacy-preserving computation primitives (e.g., homomorphic encryption, secure multi-party computation, differential privacy) and their applicability to blockchain and distributed ledger systems.
Cryptographic foundations and secure design of hardware- and software-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and secure enclaves in blockchain and distributed ledger settings.
Cryptographically enforced confidential smart contracts and privacy-preserving on-chain/off-chain execution models, including encrypted transactions, and computation over encrypted data.
Remote attestation protocols, cryptographic identity of enclaves, trust bootstrapping, and secure lifecycle management.
Key management architectures, including secure key generation, storage, rotation, secret sharing, and threshold schemes.
Integration of TEEs with Privacy-Enhancing Cryptographic Technologies, such as zero-knowledge proofs, secure multi-party computation, verifiable computation, commitments, and differential privacy, to reduce trust assumptions and strengthen confidentiality and integrity guarantees.

B) Architecture, Integration, and Cryptographic Agility

Design of distributed ledger architectures that combine Confidential Computing with cryptographic protocols to enable hybrid on-chain/off-chain execution with strong security guarantees.
Integration patterns for hardware- and software-based TEEs with ledger cryptography, including secure channel establishment, enclave-based signing, and cryptographic binding between on-chain state and off-chain execution.
Analysis of performance, scalability, and resource trade-offs arising from cryptographic operations within enclaves and PETs, including signature schemes, verification costs, and secure memory constraints.
Architectural composition of Confidential Computing with Privacy-Enhancing Cryptographic Technologies (PETs), such as zero-knowledge proofs, secure multi-party computation, commitments, and verifiable computation, to balance confidentiality, verifiability, and decentralization.

Interoperability and composability of heterogeneous cryptographic schemes and TEE platforms, including abstraction layers, protocol compatibility, and cross-platform trust establishment.

C) Secure Data Handling and Privacy-Enabling Techniques

Secure communication mechanisms between trusted and untrusted components, including attested secure channels, enclave-to-enclave communication protocols, authenticated encryption, and key exchange under remote attestation.
Design and evaluation of trusted randomness sources and randomness beacons, including enclave-generated randomness, verifiable random functions (VRFs), and hybrid entropy collection for consensus protocols, committee selection, and decentralized leader election.
Data access control, policy enforcement, and confidentiality guarantees for sensitive workloads, including fine-grained data sharing, auditability, and compliance-aware confidential execution.
Hybrid architectures combining Privacy-Enhancing Cryptographic Techniques (e.g., homomorphic encryption) with Trusted Execution Environments, to enable efficient confidential computation in blockchain systems, including enclave-assisted decryption and key management.

D) Protocols, Consensus, and Security Challenges

Design and evaluation of consensus protocols and incentive mechanisms that incorporate Confidential Computing and cryptographic guarantees, balancing transparency, confidentiality, fairness, and resistance to manipulation.
Cryptographically secure cross-chain interoperability mechanisms, including confidential bridges, attested relayers, threshold signatures, and proof systems for trusted execution across decentralized networks.
Secure execution models for smart contracts within TEEs, including cryptographic binding of on-chain state to enclave execution, verifiable execution proofs, and upgradable governance mechanisms with cryptographic accountability.
Analysis of cryptographic assumptions, failure modes, and attack surfaces introduced by TEEs and PETs in protocol design, including trust minimization, decentralization trade-offs, and mitigation strategies.

E) Implementation, Evaluation, and Real-World Applications

Reference implementations, reproducible testbeds, and deployment case studies demonstrating confidential computing.
Security engineering topics such as side-channel mitigation, rollback protection, enclave debugging, and monitoring.
Practical applications in finance, healthcare, identity management, IoT, supply chains, cloud infrastructure, and other critical sectors.

F) Governance, Ethics, and Regulatory Considerations

Long-term management and governance of confidential computing.
Societal implications, privacy considerations, and responsible deployment of TEEs and other secure enclaves.
Standards, regulatory compliance, and best practices for integrating confidential computing into blockchain ecosystems.

The topics covered by this workshop span the full spectrum of Confidential Computing as an enabling technology for blockchain and distributed ledger systems, from cryptographic primitives and trusted execution building blocks to system architectures, protocol design, and real-world deployments. By addressing secure execution, privacy-preserving computation, cryptographic integration, and hybrid on-chain/off-chain architectures, the workshop highlights how Trusted Execution Environments and Privacy-Enhancing Technologies can be combined to strengthen confidentiality, integrity, and trust in adversarial and decentralized settings. In addition, the workshop aims to bridge cryptographic foundations with practical system design, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration and advancing the development of secure, scalable, and privacy-preserving blockchain infrastructures.