CoinTrust

Cubist Brings Confidential Compute to Web3 Mainnet

cubist

Developers and institutions are gaining a new option for deploying advanced Web3 applications as Cubist rolls out confidential compute capabilities to mainnet environments. The San Diego–based Web3 infrastructure provider has announced the general availability and production deployment of its Cubist Confidential Cloud Functions, also known as C2F. The company positions the platform as the first confidential compute solution in Web3 that is actively running live systems on mainnet networks, rather than remaining limited to experimental or test deployments.

Cubist explained that C2F is designed to combine the privacy and performance benefits of off-chain execution with the verifiability and trust guarantees typically associated with on-chain logic. The platform enables developers to run compute-intensive, cross-chain, and privacy-sensitive workloads without exposing underlying data or business logic. Founded in 2022, Cubist focuses on key management and security infrastructure and is backed by investors such as Polychain, dao5, Blizzard, and Paxos.

Addressing a Long-Standing Web3 Tradeoff

As decentralized applications have grown more complex, development teams have often faced a difficult choice. Keeping all logic on-chain provides transparency and cryptographic guarantees but comes with high gas costs, limited performance, and full public visibility of data. Moving logic off-chain can improve speed and reduce costs, but it typically sacrifices the assurances that smart contracts provide. Cubist has positioned C2F as a solution to this tradeoff by allowing sensitive logic to be executed in tamper-resistant hardware while still producing verifiable proof of execution.

According to the company, C2F enables developers to deploy private, custom code at scale across multiple chains. This code can rely on private datasets, external APIs, live market feeds, or confidential business rules while remaining protected from interference. Developers can write this logic using familiar programming languages and deploy it through standard CI and CD pipelines, reducing friction and avoiding the need for entirely new development workflows.

Trusted Execution and Production-Grade Reliability

Each execution within C2F runs inside a Trusted Execution Environment, or TEE, which is a hardware-backed secure enclave. Cubist stated that this approach ensures the deployed code cannot be altered by the underlying host system and that both inputs and outputs remain confidential. At the same time, cryptographic attestations are generated so that counterparties can verify exactly which code was executed.

The company has emphasized that C2F is designed for production use rather than experimentation. It is already operating in live environments with projects such as Squid, along with other decentralized finance initiatives and institutional clients. Cubist views this production readiness as a key differentiator in a market where many infrastructure offerings remain limited to pilots or testnets.

Private Smart Contracts and Cross-Chain Design

Cubist described C2F as a foundation for private smart contracts, defined as off-chain logic that enforces contract-like rules at low cost while optionally keeping signing logic hidden from public view. This model supports complex workflows that would be inefficient or impractical to implement entirely on-chain. Because the logic is chain-agnostic, developers can write applications once and deploy them across multiple networks, including chains that do not natively support smart contracts.


The company reported that teams are already using C2F-powered private smart contracts for use cases such as private multichain swaps, compliance-aware tokenization, programmable escrow arrangements, and on-chain settlement logic. Cubist argued that many of these designs were not feasible with previous infrastructure, particularly when interacting with non–smart contract chains.

Verifiable Off-Chain Decisions and Institutional Use

Beyond private execution, C2F supports verifiable off-chain code for critical decision points. In this model, C2F workloads sit in front of sensitive actions and generate cryptographic records detailing which logic authorized an action and the conditions under which it occurred. This approach provides regulators, partners, and internal risk teams with strong audit trails while keeping sensitive data confidential.

Cubist indicated that this capability enables institutional-grade controls such as automated liquidation and repayment systems, real-time risk engines, and compliance-ready workflows. The platform is integrated with CubeSigner, Cubist’s non-custodial key storage and signing solution, and can also connect with existing enterprise key management systems to support broader adoption.

Early Adoption and Market Impact

C2F has already been integrated into the latest version of Squid’s cross-chain order routing and auction layer, supporting fast swaps across diverse networks. Squid’s leadership has indicated that the integration replaced on-chain smart contracts with private off-chain logic, improving speed, reliability, and pricing while maintaining decentralization principles.

Cubist’s leadership has framed C2F as a response to persistent limitations in Web3 tooling, noting that developers have long been forced to choose between privacy and transparency or between trust and performance. With C2F now generally available, Cubist aims to make confidential, verifiable off-chain logic a standard component of the Web3 technology stack.

Exit mobile version