Secret is supported by dozens of global organizations. The core development team is Israel-based SCRT Labs, whose mission is to create products and systems that accelerate the adoption of privacy-first, decentralized technologies. The CEO and founder of SCRT Labs is Guy Zyskind, a former MIT researcher who is one of the most highly-cited authors on blockchain privacy.

Another core organization is Secret Foundation. The Foundation’s mission is to “advance privacy as a human right and public good; to empower individuals through development and use of decentralized technologies; to protect freedom and create more valuable systems by eliminating data monopolies; and to build a sustainable network, foundation, and community that will work to instill these core values around the world.” Secret Foundation was founded in 2017 by Tor Bair, a US-based entrepreneur and MIT alumni that has been advising several other Fintech companies.

Other contributing organizations can be found on the Secret Ecosystem page on the Secret Network website.

Secret Network stands out with its focus on privacy and end-to-end encryption of data, something that blockchains like Ethereum don’t offer. Developers are able to build solutions that protect data privacy without compromising usability, contributing to the network’s goal of advancing the adoption of privacy-first, decentralized applications.

In contrast to other public blockchains, node operators on Secret utilize specialized hardware for running code in secure enclaves called Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). In these TEEs, not even device administrators can access the information that is being decrypted. On the user’s end, the blockchain works as follows:

• Users send encrypted input to the network
• Validators (the Secret nodes) perform computations over encrypted data
• Proposing validator submits encrypted output
• Validators achieve consensus on the results
• Encrypted outputs and encrypted contract state are recorded on Secret Network

The functionality of the smart contracts is based on CosmWasm, the smart contracting platform of the Cosmos ecosystem.

Secret’s potential use cases are manifold. For instance, digital content management platforms can use Secret to store a decryption key to the content. After a user pays, the Secret contract shares the decryption key, and the user receives their unique access key. With traditional blockchains, this is not possible since the data is publicly visible.

Other examples are secret auctions and secret voting, which could make use of the encrypted bids and votes they can submit to a Secret Contract. In this scenario, the contract computing encrypted outputs can determine the winner without revealing the votes.

Finally, Secret can maintain privacy in decentralized finance with a permissionless economic system that offers economic opportunities for wealth generation that have not been possible before.

SCRT can be used for staking, voting, and paying network transaction fees. It is also necessary to operate a node in the network, with the validators receiving rewards and a share of the transaction fees from token swaps. Thanks to the delegated proof-of-stake system of Secret, non-node-operating token holders can delegate their SCRT to a validator to earn a share of the network rewards. SCRT also functions as a governance token.

The initial total supply of SCRT was 170 million, distributed as follows:

• Community: 75 million
• Team: 36 million - vested between 2-4 years
• Treasury: 30 million
• Foundation: 1 million
• Inflation. 8 million

Secret targets an inflation rate of 15%, with a projected inflation rate of 20%, if less than 67% of the supply is staked, and a gradual increase to 7% when more than 67% is staked.

SCRT is available on Binance, Mandala Exchange, Huobi Global, Gate.io, and MEXC.

If you want to learn more about how to start buying cryptocurrencies, you can read more in our guide.

Check out Terra (LUNA) — a layer-one blockchain based on the LUNA token.

Check out Polkadot (DOT) — a blockchain that serves as the basis for other blockchains.

Read our deep dive into layer-two solutions.

Get the latest crypto news and latest trading insights with the CoinMarketCap blog.