Keynote: Arcium (Yannik Schrade)

The future of private transactions on Solana just got a major upgrade. At Breakpoint 2025, Arcium founder Yannik Schrade unveiled CSPL—the Confidential SPL token standard—which he describes as "the most advanced token standard to ever be conceived on top of a public blockchain." Set to launch in Q1 2026, this technology will enable any existing Solana token to have encrypted balances and hidden transfer amounts, opening the door for institutional finance to finally come on-chain.

Summary

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Arcium has positioned itself as "the encrypted execution engine of the internet," and after a year of intensive development since its unveiling at Breakpoint 2024 in Singapore, the team is ready to deliver on that promise. The core innovation lies in what Schrade calls "encrypted shared state"—a fundamental shift from previous privacy attempts that kept secrets isolated and unable to interact.

Unlike traditional privacy solutions that fragment data across different parties who cannot share or interact with each other, Arcium enables collective encrypted data to be unified and processed through encrypted computations. This means developers can put encrypted data on-chain and run computations over everyone's collective encrypted information without anyone—including the computers performing the calculations—ever seeing the underlying data.

The past year has seen explosive growth for Arcium, with thousands of nodes deployed on their testnet and hundreds of developers building applications through hackathons. Perhaps most notably, Umbra—one of the first teams to build entirely on Arcium's infrastructure—raised what Schrade described as "the largest ICO in Solana history" on MetaDAO, demonstrating real market validation for encrypted execution technology.

The technical foundation powering all of this is Cerberus, Arcium's proprietary protocol that represents the "first ever dishonest majority protocol." This cryptographic breakthrough means that encrypted computations only require one single honest participant, rather than requiring a majority of participants to be honest—a dramatic improvement in security assumptions that makes the entire system more practical and trustworthy.

Key Points:

CSPL: The Confidential SPL Token Standard

The headline announcement from Schrade's keynote is CSPL, launching in Q1 2026. This new standard will allow any existing token on Solana to become confidential, encrypting both balances and transfer amounts so they're hidden from public view. What makes CSPL particularly revolutionary is the introduction of "confidential smart token accounts"—for the first time ever, a smart contract itself can hold confidential balances and perform confidential transfers.

This means a program running on-chain, with no private key associated to any individual, can manage tokens where literally no human or computer in the world knows how many tokens the account holds. The interfaces have been designed to mirror the existing public token standard as closely as possible, allowing developers to simply switch context between public and confidential modes while building on familiar foundations.

Encrypted Shared State vs. Isolated Encrypted State

Previous privacy solutions on blockchains operated on what Schrade calls "isolated encrypted state"—secrets remained in the custody of different parties and couldn't interact or be shared. This created a fragmented experience that limited what could actually be built. Arcium's approach with encrypted shared state fundamentally changes this paradigm.

With encrypted shared state, all encrypted data can be unified and computed upon collectively. This enables entirely new use cases, particularly in what Arcium calls "encrypted capital markets." Different confidential trading venues, lending protocols, and markets can all execute and settle across venues within a single encrypted execution—because within that encrypted computation, all venues appear as "lit venues" that can interact. This cross-venue settlement capability is something that wasn't possible even in traditional finance, representing a genuine technological leap forward.

The Cerberus Protocol and Dishonest Majority

At the technical heart of Arcium sits Cerberus, described as the first dishonest majority protocol ever created. In traditional multi-party computation (MPC) systems, you need to assume that a majority of participants are acting honestly for the system to maintain security. Cerberus flips this assumption—you only need one single honest participant within the distributed computation for security to hold.

Schrade acknowledges the mathematical complexity behind this breakthrough, noting that even he doesn't understand everything his team of cryptographers and PhDs has developed. The practical implication, however, is massive: the system becomes far more robust against adversarial behavior, making encrypted execution practical for real-world, high-stakes applications.

Scalability Breakthroughs

Arcium has achieved what Schrade describes as "orders of magnitude" improvements over state-of-the-art solutions in encrypted computing. While previous solutions might handle 20-30 confidential transfers per second, Arcium can perform tens of thousands, if not millions, of encrypted operations per second depending on how measurements are conducted.

The protocol also excels in ciphertext size optimization. Because encrypted data is as compact as possible, everything can be stored directly on Solana's blockchain. This composability means encrypted data can interact seamlessly with public context—developers can switch between public and confidential modes within their on-chain programs without any friction.

Developer Experience with Arcus

To abstract away the cryptographic complexity, Arcium has built Arcus—the first Rust compiler designed specifically for encrypted computations. Developers write normal Rust code, and it becomes encrypted automatically. When using CSPL, a developer simply calls functions like "create account" or "transfer" and passes encrypted values along with their signature. Nothing more is required.

This focus on developer experience explains the rapid adoption Arcium has seen over the past year. By hiding the complex mathematics behind familiar programming patterns, Arcium removes the barrier that typically prevents mainstream developer adoption of privacy technologies.

Facts + Figures

• CSPL (Confidential SPL token standard) launches in Q1 2026, enabling confidential balances and transfers for any existing Solana token

• Umbra, built entirely on Arcium, raised the largest ICO in Solana history on MetaDAO

• Thousands of nodes have been deployed on Arcium's testnet in the past year

• Hundreds of developers have built applications for hackathons using Arcium

• Arcium's throughput can reach tens of thousands to millions of encrypted operations per second, compared to 20-30 confidential transfers per second with previous solutions

• Cerberus is the first dishonest majority protocol, requiring only one honest participant for security

• Arcus is the first Rust compiler designed specifically for encrypted computations

• Arcium unveiled its technology at Breakpoint 2024 in Singapore, exactly one year before this announcement

• Ciphertext sizes have been optimized to allow all encrypted data to be stored directly on Solana

Top Quotes

• "ARCHIUM is the encrypted execution engine of the internet."

• "In my mind, it's the most advanced token standard to ever be conceived on top of a public blockchain."

• "For the first time ever, an on-chain program, a literal smart contract can have confidential balances and perform confidential transfers. There's no private key associated."

• "There's not a single human being or a single computer in the world that knows how many tokens this account holds."

• "We beat state-of-the-art solutions by orders of magnitude."

• "Solana is the internet's execution engine for public shared state."

• "That huge unlock that we are bringing is that thanks to encrypted shared state, we have different confidential markets, but differently from what was previously possible within traditional finance."

• "Me, myself, I don't understand everything. Luckily, I have some of the smartest cryptographers and PhDs in my team."

• "Let's encrypt everything and compute anything."

Questions Answered

What is CSPL and why does it matter?

CSPL stands for Confidential SPL, a new token standard that enables any existing token on Solana to have encrypted balances and hidden transfer amounts. This matters because it brings institutional-grade privacy to the Solana ecosystem without requiring users to move to a new token or system. The standard is designed to mirror existing SPL token interfaces, so developers can simply switch between public and confidential contexts. Most importantly, CSPL introduces confidential smart token accounts—smart contracts that can hold and transfer tokens privately, with no human or computer ever knowing the actual balance.

How is Arcium different from other blockchain privacy solutions?

Previous privacy attempts used "isolated encrypted state," where secrets remained separate and couldn't interact with each other. Arcium introduces "encrypted shared state," which unifies everyone's collective encrypted data and allows computations to run across all of it. This enables applications that were previously impossible, such as cross-venue trading and settlement in encrypted capital markets. The symbiotic relationship with Solana means that while Solana handles public shared state, Arcium handles the encrypted execution layer.

What is Cerberus and why is it a breakthrough?

Cerberus is Arcium's core protocol and represents the first "dishonest majority" protocol in encrypted computing. Traditional multi-party computation requires a majority of participants to be honest for security guarantees to hold. Cerberus only requires one single honest participant, dramatically improving the security model. This makes encrypted execution practical for high-stakes applications because the system can tolerate more adversarial behavior while maintaining its security properties.

How fast can Arcium process confidential transactions?

Arcium has achieved orders of magnitude improvements over previous state-of-the-art encrypted computing solutions. While earlier systems could handle roughly 20-30 confidential transfers per second, Arcium can process tens of thousands to millions of encrypted operations per second. This scalability, combined with optimized ciphertext sizes that allow all encrypted data to be stored directly on-chain, makes Arcium practical for real-world high-throughput applications.

What does "encrypted capital markets" mean?

Encrypted capital markets represent the combination of internet capital markets, encrypted execution, and institutional finance. This includes everything from confidential transfers to confidential lending and trading markets. The key innovation is that with encrypted shared state, different confidential venues can execute and settle within a single encrypted execution—something that wasn't possible even in traditional finance. This capability could bring the entirety of institutional finance on-chain by providing the privacy guarantees that large financial institutions require.

Do developers need to understand cryptography to build on Arcium?

No. Arcium has built Arcus, the first Rust compiler for encrypted computations, which allows developers to write normal Rust code that automatically becomes encrypted. When using CSPL, developers simply call standard functions like "create account" or "transfer" and pass encrypted values with their signature. The complex cryptographic mathematics happens behind the scenes, hidden by abstractions that make development feel familiar and straightforward.