Oasis Network mainnet launches touting privacy for loans and genomes

Published at: Nov. 19, 2020

Oasis Labs has announced the successful launch of its Oasis Network mainnet, with more than 70 independent validators already live.

Oasis is a privacy-focused layer-one network designed to support decentralized applications that claims a throughput of 1000 transactions per second. In June 2018, Oasis raised $45 million from crypto-venture heavyweights including A16z, Binance Labs, Pantera and Polychain. Oasis allows data to be encrypted, and for privacy policies surrounding its use to be enforced through smart contracts

Oasis Labs says its “confidential compute” functionality enables encrypted data to be processed by the network’s nodes to ensure the privacy of a wide range of processes, from credit history checks to genetic research. An announcement on Nov. 19 explained:

“The Oasis Network can support a new breed of privacy-preserving applications that respect a user’s data preferences by design and ensure each individual is fairly compensated for their data. They can earn rewards by staking their data with apps that want to analyze it or control how their most sensitive information is consumed by the services they use.”

The Oasis team touts the network’s privacy protocols as facilitating the creation of undercollateralized loan products within DeFi sector. The network is said to have a greater capacity to enable credit checks as it ensures the privacy of sensitive financial or personal data, allowing loan applicants to establish their creditworthiness to lenders. 

The majority of existing loan products within DeFi offer overcollateralized lending, although efforts to introduce undercollateralized loans are also being undertaken by projects, including Mainframe.

The announcement notes that DeFi industry leaders Chainlink and Balancer recently joined Oasis Network. Oasis Labs also believes its secure architecture could also facilitate the creation of private decentralized exchange platforms, including automated market makers like Uniswap.

According to Oasis, “hundreds” of partnership projects are already being built on the network, including a “privacy-first genome sequencing” venture with Nebula Genomics, and the Binance-led CryptoSafe Alliance, or CSA.

Last month, Oasis announced that Nebula Genomics would be using its data governance API product “Parcel” to allow genomic data to be analyzed within an isolated computing environment.

The project is intended to reduce the risk of consumers’ genetic data being compromised through the breach of centralized databases. Parcel also offers secure data storage, and tamper-proof access history logs to consumers.

Announced in August, the CSA is a platform designed to facilitate the private sharing of threat intelligence data among cryptocurrency exchanges. The CSA uses Oasis’ confidential smart contracts to ensure that sensitive data belonging to participating entities is kept private within the network.

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