Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs)

Overview

A Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is a secure enclave inside an Arx node's processor that improves a node's security guarantees by keeping key shares and data solely within the TEE itself — isolated from all other processes on the machine. Providing a TEE represents an additional cost to a Node Operator since it is an additional hardware device that must be acquired and maintained, however Arx nodes that support TEEs may be more sought after, positively impacting their revenue, see the Incentive Changes sub-section below. For more details about TEEs, see the Key Share Management and Security section.

Incentive Changes

Arx nodes that support TEEs will be open to a greater volume of computational jobs since many confidential computing applications require the use of TEEs for their improved security guarantees. Clusters define the number of TEE-enabled nodes that they require, therefore by providing a TEE, an Arx node makes itself available for all potential Cluster-needs — it can join Clusters that need either a TEE or non-TEE node — increasing the total number of Clusters that the node is a member of and thereby its overall computation revenue.