Zama's Arik Galansky discusses applying FHE (fully homomorphic encryption) as Stellar's privacy infrastructure for institutions. Compares FHE, ZK, and TEE; covers use cases in trading, payments, and RWAs; and institutional requirements for compliant on-chain privacy.
A fireside chat with Zama's Chief Product Officer Arik Galansky explores the path to privacy infrastructure on Stellar, using the historical parallel of HTTPS bringing privacy to the early internet. Galansky contrasts three privacy technologies—FHE (fully homomorphic encryption), ZK (zero-knowledge proofs), and TEE (trusted execution environments)—and their trade-offs. The conversation covers concrete institutional use cases: investment strategies requiring secrecy from competitors, payment privacy from vendors and peers, and RWA composition that requires confidentiality to operate. Galansky argues that Stellar's privacy layer should provide institutional-grade compliance-ready privacy without anonymity, enabling real financial operations while maintaining auditability. Recent Stellar privacy work includes Nethermind's Private Payments, OpenZeppelin's Confidential Tokens, and Arcane's compliance infrastructure.
