What is Nillion (NIL)?
Nillion (NIL) is a network designed to keep data private while it is stored and processed. Instead of decrypting information for computation, the network allows sensitive inputs to remain hidden. This model is aimed at areas like healthcare, finance, and artificial intelligence.
What is NIL used for?
The NIL token serves as the network's payment and access mechanism. It has several roles:
- Paying for services: Developers spend NIL to use tools such as encrypted databases and private AI inference.
- Staking: Node operators lock NIL as collateral to participate in verification.
- Governance: Holders can vote on changes to the protocol.
This setup aligns the incentives of users, operators, and token holders.
How does data stay private?
Nillion combines multiple privacy technologies rather than relying on one. With multi-party computation, data is split into fragments and spread across nodes, so no single node sees the full picture. Homomorphic encryption allows calculations on encrypted data without decrypting it first. Trusted execution environments run computations inside isolated hardware. Together, these layers keep information protected while it is stored, moved, and processed.
What modules are available?
The network offers practical building blocks. nilDB is a distributed database that can answer queries over encrypted records. nilAI runs AI model inference without exposing user data to the model host. nilVM provides a general environment for blind computation. Developers can pick the module that fits their use case.
