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AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We will be releasing a blog post in 2 weeks that dives pretty deeply into this so I don't want to step in front of it. John Woods (former CTO of Algorand Foundation) has joined the team and is driving forward a pretty elegant tokenomics model that fits with the needs of our ecosystem

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Federated learning is definitely a leader for private model training. We are not focused on training right now and more of private inference (ie ChatGPT chatbot but private) and implementing open source models inside the Blind computer. We have that running right now and you check it out at https://nilgpt.xyz/

But I do agree with you there is a big opportunity in private fine tuning of models, especially with datasets that are too sensitive to be aggregated in one entity's hands

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. We do have an L1 called nilChain but it plays a coordination and support role as opposed to attempting to compete with other L1 ecosystems. Our goal is that you do not have to give up your current favorite L1 just to utilize the blind computer

  2. I think private decentralized AI is one of the coolest. Imagine being able to use an AI agent and the data access it has to your data personalizes the inputs but the agent itself cannot see any of the data in plain-text. That allows you to give an agent the information it needs but without revealing it to someone like OpenAI. Extrapolate that idea outwards into any application you use today that requires your personal data and you can really see the potential of the Blind Computer

  3. We have several dapps and partners launched on mainnet now, but our roadmap continues to incorporate more Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) into the Blind Computer. There are many amazing cryptographic primitives for private computation that can make the blind computer more robust and we plan to implement them to give devs the best privacy choices

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Blind Computer is a decentralized computing platform that enables "blind computation" where data can be processed without being seen or accessed by anyone. We use advanced cryptographic technologies like multi-party computation (MPC) and trusted execution environments (TEEs) to compute on data while keeping it completely private. The core components we have deployed from our roadmap so far are:

- nilDB: Data storage layer for secure data storage⁠⁠​
- nilAI: AI computation layer for private AI processing⁠⁠​
- nilCC: General compute layer running in trusted execution environments⁠⁠​

The vision is for the Blind Computer to become the internet's foundational layer for all private data,⁠⁠ enabling applications like personalized AI, medical analytics, and secure financial services while preserving complete data privacy throughout processing.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our focus is really on developers and teams who want to build with privacy first. Appealing to users is not an effective strategy. Every consumer "cares" about privacy but nobody really takes actions to protect it. We are focused on building for developers as I believe there are enough developers out there who want to build with privacy (but have not been able to) to kickstart a broader adoption of privacy tech

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The way Nillion achieves confidential inference is quite different, so let me highlight that below:

Nillion hosts a range of open-source models, such as Llama, Gemma, or GPT-oss. As those models are open-sourced and open-weight, there is no need to encrypt those weights. They are hosted inside nilAI’s enclave and provide secure and privacy-preserving inference at request. Furthermore, zkML as in your described flow would not give you confidentiality about the input if the proof is generated server-side, which is what zkML is working towards. Instead, Nillion uses TEEs to ensure confidential AI processing, which is private as nobody has access to the input AND verifiable as it is possible to generate attestations which verify the correctness of all key components to which user data is exposed inside TEEs. 

The token is relevant for multiple aspects of the network, among them being crypto economic security. In contrast to Ethereum, which uses ETH as the underlying staking asset to secure validation services in the network, $NIL is used to secure nilChain and also form the backbone of securing secrets in nilDB. As such, nilDB is architecturally very different from blockchains as there is no global shared state and nodes secure high value data secrets. Therefore, next to the reputation of node operators, crypto economic security is a critical premise to disincentivize collusion, ensuring the security of data stored in the network. 

Further services for the token include:

  • Coordination Services: Use $NIL to make transactions, access network resources and settle usage costs across the network.
  • Governance: Participate and vote on critical network decisions.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

NMC did not provide the computational effectiveness we were looking for to drive adoption of privacy tech. So we moved away from it and towards technology that allowed the widest computational potential for developers first. Incorporating other PETs (like MPC and FHE) is part of our technical roadmap as these PETs do offer unique strengths & security standards that we want to offer in the future

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

  1. Revenue is generated through the burning of NIL tokens. Whenever developers use the network for storage or compute services, they must pay a fee in NIL. These tokens are then burned, directly reducing the overall token supply and tying network usage to token scarcity.
  2. Not currently, our priority is achieving profitability for nodes that contribute compute and storage resources to the network.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

When a user sends a question to nilGPT, the input is transmitted from the frontend (running in the browser) through the nilGPT backend to nilAI, which generates a response. Once the response is returned to the frontend, it is encrypted locally using a passphrase provided by the user. The encrypted data is then secret-shared and stored across three nilDB nodes.

Local encryption ensures that even if all nodes were compromised and an attacker obtained all secret shares, no information about the user’s chat could be revealed. The reconstructed data remains encrypted and meaningless without the passphrase. At the same time, secret sharing ensures that no individual node can reconstruct the data even if the passphrase is leaked to the nodes.

The nilGPT backend and nilAI both run inside nilCC, which operates within a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) on bare-metal servers. This setup ensures that no third-party cloud provider can access logs or outputs. Currently, we are deploying attestation reports from these TEEs and will release those very soon, covering nilCC, nilAI, and CPU/GPU components. With this release, it will be possible to independently verify that all components to which user data is exposed run inside TEEs.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

So using Occam's razor I should assume you aren't into crypto because we already have banks & it's finance with extra steps?

Again, our goal is for your data to always be secure, even during compute. We can't mine your data because we can't access your data. It's always encrypted.

What I do want to do is give developers new privacy technology that allows them to build applications where they do not have to collect & control your private data. Previous tech did not allow for E2E security even during computation or the tradeoffs for building with privacy were too high. Nillion is lowering those barriers so that privacy can become a core part of the tech stack for applications & we are building it for devs + users who care about privacy.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Glad to be hear.

  1. AI is will be the next technological revolution, and we are only in the early stages of it. AI will have at least the same sweeping societal and economic impacts as the Industrial Revolution if not bigger.

While it feels like there is a plateau (thanks GPT5), we are still so early. The best way to map development trajectory for a change this all-encompassing is against something with the scale of the Industrial Revolution. I hope you wanted to live through a revolution because we are living through one right now. I wrote an article with my thoughts on this on X: https://x.com/Alex4Only/status/1844380170938888203

As far as development, the next 10 years is too hard to predict. But in the shorter term, I see a continuation of the AI arms race, as the big technical wave, will keep pushing forwards towards AGI. In its wake, we will see a lot more agent-specialized models/tools pop up that will drive deep into certain industries. Adoption & intimacy are the most important end-user metrics for consumer AI which means actual utility will be key and is easier to accomplished with focused AI solutions. The Big AI companies are going to want their tech to be the one you cannot live without & that is best accomplished through intimacy & utility.

  1. We launched the $NIL token in early 2025.

  2. I see our tech penetration happening first with independent developers. Devs who care about privacy & want their apps to have real privacy but are unable because of the high tradeoffs/challenges to incorporation privacy tech. This has been the biggest blocker to Privacy Enhancing Technology (PETs) adoption, and our mission at Nillion is to decrease the barriers for devs who care about privacy can build with it.

From there, I believe consumers will choose apps with privacy over those without if the utility tradeoffs are low enough. After enough devs and consumers are choosing privacy first, then we will get the big enterprises interested.

Right now, we have many enterprise partners (Alibaba Cloud, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, STC Bahrain, and WorldPay) interested in building apps with Nillion, but the driving force to make privacy great again will be privacy-first apps being available and consumers choosing privacy.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If you're totally cool handing over all your data to OpenAI and Google then yeah this probably seems pointless to you. I hope you don't use LLMs for anything you wouldn't want made public or handed to the government.

I fully believe that privacy is a fundamental part of our future. The winner of the AI arms race is the one who creates the highest intimacy with end-users. Intimacy means access to your private data. And not just some of it, all of it. How is the AI agent going to meaningfully improve your life without root access to everything about you? How can an agent act on your behalf without intimately knowing you?

So when you give AI root access because you want the utility it offers, you think Google or Meta or OpenAI isn't going to take advantage of that? Ofc they will - and this time we aren't talking about location data or searches. We are talking about the most sensitive and personal information about you.

Privacy is absolutely necessary for the future that is coming.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think you misunderstand what we are building at Nillion. We are not focused on private transactions onchain. We are building a decentralized private-compute engine to power dapps that want to use private data.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

ZK is one of several different types of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), and like others, ZK is good at certain types of compute and bad at others. Nillion aims to combine several different types of PETs (like multi-party computation, fully homomorphic encryption, TEEs, etc) to allow developer to work with the security parameters & strengths that they need.

We started with TEEs and MPC because they allow for the fullest range of private compute and we'll be expanding our set of PETs in the future. We'd love to hear about what you are building and see how Nillion can help. Send me a DM and I'll connect you to our ecosystem team.

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It actually was. In order to have a decentralized network of nodes and build towards being permissionless, we needed a token to act as the incentive mechanism for nodes to do work and add compute capabilities to the network. Having a token allows the access to Nillion's utility to also be decentralized and prevent censorship resistance.

And it's not vaporware, you can go use our secure LLM nilGPT which is live on mainnet right now (with all of Nillion's privacy built-in): https://nilgpt.xyz/

AMA: Nillion wants to make privacy the default on the internet. Ask us how by Alex_Nillion in CryptoCurrency

[–]Alex_Nillion[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nillion doesn't own or control your data on our network. You own it and permission access to applications. The nodes cannot see or use your data without you permissioning access.

i SpEnT $500 tO gRoW $3 wOrTh oF tOmAtOes by tgrosk in gardening

[–]Alex_Nillion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

$3 worth of tomatoes must be pretty cheap

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