Azuki latest crypto project to test Flashbot's TEEs, the innovation changing what's possible for decentralized apps

Bluechip NFT brand Azuki has been experimenting with novel blockchain tech recently unveiled by Flashbots for its “Bobu Magic Show” project. This experiment uses Flashbots' trusted execution environment (TEE), recently integrated into Uniswap Labs' new Layer 2 network, Unichain, which was unveiled on Thursday. The goal is to create interactive fan experiences both on-chain and on social media platform X.

Bobu is a fractionalized Azuki NFT with its own social media presence. Using TEEs—secure computing environments that allow developers to set parameters for their scripts—Azuki has been able to grant certain users access to Bobu’s X account without sharing the character’s password or login information.

On Thursday evening, as part of the “magic show” finale, Bobu posted on behalf of about 300 X users from their accounts. This event also featured an AI-powered livestreaming service by Hallway, which brought Bobu to “life” to interact with audience members. It followed a demonstration on Oct. 3, where an Azuki holder, @dgtlemissions, was given permission to post a single tweet from Bobu’s account using Flashbots' technology.

“This initiative introduces a groundbreaking way for fans to interact with the characters they know and love, creating a two-way, interactive experience that redefines traditional fan engagement,” Azuki Head of Growth WHIZWANG wrote in a blog recapping the experiment. “TEEs were central to this experience for guaranteeing through auditability that the community member could only tweet from Bobu’s account under a restricted set of conditions.”

Azuki used Flashbots' new Teleport tool, an application that leverages TEEs to create smart contracts capable of controlling social media accounts. This tool serves as a test for various applications of TEEs, which are common in traditional computing but relatively novel in the crypto space.

TEEs are walled-off sections of a chip's central processor, designed to execute code confidentially and privately. They are used for running scripts that require high levels of security, trust and automation.

“TEE coprocessing helps to scale existing applications by replacing on-chain logic with provable, ultra-cheap off-chain execution (similar to rollups). More importantly, it enables new applications that trustlessly interact with web2, store private data, and execute private programs,” Flashbot’s wrote in a blog post. 

While Bobu’s Magic Show might seem simple, it demonstrated the potential of integrating TEEs into blockchain applications, which Flashbots' strategy lead Hasu said is just the beginning. “We're kind of scratching the surface here,” Hasu told The Block in an interview.

Expanding functionality 

Uniswap Labs is also using TEEs to develop a new type of Layer 2 network, Unichain, featuring sub-second block times. Unlike a typical L2, which relies on a sequencer node to organize transactions, Unichain feeds transactions into a TEE that arranges them into four sub-blocks, allowing for block times as fast as 250 milliseconds—compared to Solana's 400 milliseconds.

TEEs, as Hasu explained, are versatile. TEE co-processing functions as a secure, parallel computing environment alongside a blockchain, enabling smart contracts that can call “to do stuff alongside the main virtual machine.”

“That can really upgrade the whole programming environment of your chain,” Hasu said. For example, TEEs could enable a blockchain network to run multiple virtual machines simultaneously, such as an Ethereum Virtual Machine alongside a Rust-based one.

They also offer privacy advantages by allowing select information to be stored within the TEE, accessible only to specific decentralized apps and not readable by the rest of the blockchain. This would be a notable privacy for notoriously transparent blockchains. “Even something like a private token contract would be possible,” Hasu said.

“You could have a passive liquidity position that always reads the current bid and ask price on this particular pair on Binance so you know you are always putting the same price that top market makers are putting on Binance,” said Hasu. “If that doesn't make passive [file transfer protocols] more competitive, then I don't know what would.”