Secret Network provides scalable, permissionless smart contracts with a private-by-default design, enabling novel blockchain use cases and user control over financial data. It targets developers and users seeking enhanced privacy on-chain, leveraging Cosmos SDK for interoperability.

How It Works

Secret Network utilizes Intel SGX Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), encryption, and key management to ensure data privacy within smart contracts. Smart contracts are built using CosmWasm, a Rust-based toolkit, allowing for private metadata and computations. This approach offers a unique "privacy by default" paradigm, differentiating it from public, transparent blockchains.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Installation: Prebuilt Docker environments (ghcr.io/scrtlabs/secretnetwork-dev:latest) are available for VSCode or direct use. Manual setup involves installing prerequisites like g++, libtool, automake, autoconf, clang, wget, git, make, Rust (via rustup), Go (v1.18+), gobindata, xargo (v0.3.25), and local-cors-proxy.
• SGX: Requires Intel SGX SDK and PSW installation (scripts/install-sgx.sh). For WSL, kernel 5.15 is needed, or SGX operations must be confined to Docker. DCAP installation is also mentioned.
• Build: make build-linux for the full codebase, make build-rust for Rust components, make build_local_no_rust for Go components.
• Local Network: Requires building librust_cosmwasm_enclave.signed.so from tm-secret-enclave and setting SCRT_ENCLAVE_DIR. Run ./scripts/start-node.sh.
• Documentation: https://docs.scrt.network

Highlighted Details

• First protocol to provide private smart contracts on mainnet (live since Sept 2020).
• Built with Cosmos SDK, enabling interoperability within the Cosmos ecosystem.
• Powered by the native SCRT coin for fees, staking, and governance.
• Features 20+ DApps and over 100 active builders.

Maintenance & Community

• Active community with Discord (https://chat.scrt.network), Twitter (https://twitter.com/SecretNetwork), and Telegram channels.
• Roadmap and development updates are shared via blog and forum.

Licensing & Compatibility

• The repository itself appears to be under a permissive license, but the core functionality relies on SGX, which has specific hardware and licensing considerations. The README does not explicitly state the license for the entire project or its components.

Limitations & Caveats

• SGX setup can be complex and requires specific hardware or careful Docker configuration, potentially limiting accessibility for local development.
• Production builds require enclaves signed with specific keys, implying non-reproducible builds for mainnet deployment.
• The README mentions a dependency on libssl1.1 which may require manual installation on newer Ubuntu versions.