The 40 IQ guide to TEN (formerly Obscuro)

Polo

Published in

Obscuro Labs

5 min readAug 24, 2022

Obscuro Community blog post.

My fellow apes,

Obscuro (now known as TEN) is an inclusive community. As such, we don’t forget the 40 IQ degens and apes out there.

I’ll do my best to explain Obscuro with nice pictures and colors so you can make an educated apeing.

To do so, I will answer the quintessential questions:

What is this thing?
How is it different?
What can I do with it?
Who is building it?
Token?
Node??
Wen???

What is this thing?

Obscuro is a scaling solution with privacy, built on top of Ethereum.

Obscuro uses a rollup design to enable fast and cheap transaction while retaining the security of the Ethereum base layer.

Its novel consensus algorithm called POBI leverages Trusted execution environments in a fully decentralized manner to create a network where everything can be hidden.

In short, it is a scalable blockchain where you can easily deploy any EVM-compatible smart contract and give it privacy.

Smart contract privacy — aka computational privacy or general purpose privacy — is an overlooked area of crypto where just a handful of projects like Obscuro or Secret Network are growing.

The difference between smart contract privacy and transactional privacy is fundamental to understand how Obscuro can solve the privacy trilemma, while zero-knowledge solutions like Aztec can’t. Obscuro is the only Ethereum L2 trying to achieve general purpose privacy.

On a high level, this is where Obscuro stands in the broad crypto landscape:

How is it different?

How does Obscuro stand out from the other rollup solutions in development?

I know you lazy degens like these tables so here you go:

What can I do with it?

You can do all the things you can already do on transparent blockchains, and a constellation of new use-cases unlocked with computational privacy:

Who is building it?

Obscuro is originally a spin-off from R3, the company building Corda, one of the top permissioned blockchain.

They have a long experience of delivering blockchain products trusted by the best companies and institutions in the world.

The Obscuro team is already familiar with the TEE privacy technology since it’s used in R3’s Conclave product.

They bring all this knowledge, network and experience on Ethereum to build the only decentralized L2 with smart contract privacy.

Head over here to see the full team.

Gib token

Did you just skip the whole post to come here, fellow ape?

There will be a token called OBX. Its purpose:

Pay transaction fees on Obscuro
Run an aggregator (sequencer) and earn OBX rewards
Delegate your stake to an aggregator to earn OBX
Voice your opinion in the governance

The supply is fixed at 1,000,000,000 OBX and initially distributed as such:

The contributor whitelist is rewarding value-adding members of the community. A public sale will happen this year before TGE.

A pre-seed round has been closed earlier this year and a seed round is being raised at the time of writing.

Read the full tokenomics here.

Can I operate a node?

Yes. Obscuro will have a decentralized network of sequencers from day 1, which means anyone can operate nodes in a permissionless way. Fees generated by the Obscuro platform go back to node operators and their delegates.

There are two type on nodes on the Obscuro network:

Aggregator nodes (sequencers)

They order user transactions in rollups and publish them on Ethereum L1
Aggregators need to have staked OBX
They perceive the ‘total fee per transaction’ to cover their running cost
They are rewarded with the ‘active node reward’ and the ‘rollup publication reward’.

Verifier nodes

They monitor the network and challenge transactions in case of hacks and irregularities
Anyone can run a verifier node; no need to stake OBX
They perceive the ‘total fee per transaction’ to cover their running cost
They are rewarded with the ‘active node reward’