TEEs in Web3

Most of the infrastructure in Web3 already runs on someone else’s computer: cloud VMs, managed databases, RPC providers, rollup sequencers, indexers, etc. Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) give us a way to keep using that infrastructure without handing it full visibility and control over user data. In practice, TEEs are used as hardware-isolated co-processors: the chain (or dApp) sends encrypted state/inputs in, the enclave computes, and posts back only the result plus a remote-attestation proof.

What makes TEEs relevant to Web3 is not just confidentiality, but who can operate the hardware. A TEE-based system can be run by permissionless node operators, while still keeping order-flow, strategy, or user data hidden from them. This is exactly what you want for things like private DEX matching, encrypted mempools / MEV protection, confidential rollup proving, oracle/bridge logic, auctions, or any outsourced execution where the operator is adversarial by default.

Compared to pure ZK or FHE-only designs, TEEs give you “internet-speed privacy”: near-native CPU performance, no exotic circuits, and much simpler integration with existing chains and wallets. The trade-off is an explicit hardware trust anchor (Intel/AMD + cloud vendor) and a more delicate operational story: you must treat the parent VM as hostile, validate attestation correctly, and harden all enclave I/O paths. In other words, TEEs don’t remove trust, they re-locate and make it auditable.

For protocol teams, choosing TEE infra therefore becomes a threat-model and UX decision, not a hype decision. You have to answer: What are we protecting (user identity, order-flow, validator keys)? Who are we trusting (cloud vendor, node operator set, HSM/KMS)? What availability and latency do we need? How much operational overhead (DevOps, monitoring, incident response) can we realistically carry?

Later in this document we’ll break down concrete decision factors and provide a comparison matrix across popular platforms (Nitro Enclaves, SGX/TDX, AMD SEV-SNP, dStack-style infra, etc.). The goal isn’t to crown a single “best” TEE, but to show which combinations of guarantees, risks, and headaches line up with typical Web3 use-cases: rollups, DEXes, bridges, oracles, and privacy-preserving DeFi.