Developers and institutions are gaining a new way to deploy advanced Web3 applications, as Cubist brings confidential compute to mainnet for private and verifiable off-chain logic.
Cubist debuts Confidential Cloud Functions on mainnet
In San Diego, security-focused Web3 infrastructure provider Cubist announced the general availability and production rollout of its Cubist Confidential Cloud Functions (C2F), described as the first Web3 confidential compute platform running live systems on mainnet networks. The platform combines off-chain privacy and speed with on-chain style guarantees, enabling private, compute-intensive and cross-chain logic.
As decentralized applications become more sophisticated, teams typically face a painful tradeoff. They can keep logic entirely on-chain and accept high gas costs, performance limits and full public data exposure. Alternatively, they can move logic off-chain and lose the cryptographic assurances of a smart contract. C2F aims to remove this dilemma by letting developers execute sensitive, custom code in tamper-proof hardware, at scale and across multiple chains.
Moreover, Cubist positions C2F as a new foundation for private smart contracts and verifiable off-chain code, targeting both DeFi protocols and enterprise use cases. The solution is already live in production with Squid, other DeFi projects and institutional clients, according to the company.
How C2F executes private logic at scale
With C2F, developers can write code that uses private data, external API calls, real-time market feeds or sensitive business logic in familiar programming languages. They then deploy that code through existing CI/CD pipelines, avoiding the need to adopt entirely new development workflows or tooling.
Each C2F execution runs inside a secure Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). This hardware-backed enclave ensures that the deployed code cannot be modified or influenced by the host system and that inputs and outputs remain confidential. However, the system still exposes cryptographic attestations, so counterparties can verify exactly what code ran.
That said, the design targets production-grade reliability rather than experimental use. Cubist emphasizes that C2F is live today and powering real systems, not just testnet pilots, which is a key differentiator in the current infrastructure landscape.
Private smart contracts across any chain
C2F enables teams to build private smart contracts, defined here as off-chain logic that enforces contract-like rules at low cost while optionally keeping signing logic hidden from observers. This execution model supports complex workflows that may be impractical or impossible entirely on-chain.
Because the logic is inherently any-chain, teams can write applications once and deploy them across multiple networks. They can also coordinate activity between chains that do not natively support smart contracts, unlocking new designs around liquidity, settlement and risk management.
Moreover, Cubist reports that teams are using C2F-powered private smart contracts for instant private multi chain swaps, private compliance-aware tokenization, programmable escrows and on-chain settlement logic. The company argues that many of these applications simply were not feasible with previous infrastructure, especially on non-smart-contract chains.
Verifiable off-chain code and institutional controls
Beyond private execution, C2F supports verifiable off chain code for critical decision points. In this model, the C2F workload sits in front of sensitive actions and creates a detailed, verifiable record of what logic authorized the action and why it did so.
This design gives regulators, partners and internal risk teams cryptographic evidence about which code path executed, providing a strong audit trail. That said, the underlying data and logic can remain confidential, balancing transparency with privacy for institutional users.
According to Cubist, this foundation enables institutional-grade controls, automated liquidation and repayment mechanisms, proactive risk engines that respond to real-time data and more. Moreover, all of these workflows can include verifiable audit trails suitable for regulatory or compliance reviews.
Squid adopts C2F for cross-chain liquidity
C2F is already integrated into the latest version of Squid‘s Cross-Chain Order Routing and Auction Layer (CORAL). Squid is a leading cross-chain liquidity provider focused on fast, reliable swaps across heterogeneous networks.
“We are thrilled to partner with Cubist to supercharge Squid’s cross-chain liquidity network. By leveraging Cubist Confidential Cloud Functions, we have replaced on-chain smart contracts with private, off-chain logic, enabling sub-second swaps across EVM, non-EVM and even non-smart contract chains like Bitcoin, all with higher reliability and better pricing,” said Fig, Co-Founder of Squid.
Fig added that Squid chose Cubist for its security guarantees and non-custodial design, which align with the project’s decentralization principles. Moreover, he emphasized the goal of delivering seamless solutions for both institutional and retail users as cross-chain activity grows.
Cubist’s vision for Web3 infrastructure
Cubist Co-Founder and CTO Fraser Brown framed C2F as a response to long-standing limitations in Web3 tooling. “Web3 has opened up exciting possibilities across finance and beyond, yet developers are still constrained by tools that force them to choose between transparency and privacy, or between trust and performance,” he said.
“C2F is different: it is live today, built specifically for the demands of production systems and already enabling teams to build what simply was not possible before, from enforcing smart contract logic on chains that do not support smart contracts, to applying custom, auditable signing rules to high-value transactions,” Brown continued. “We are proud to be the first to deliver this solution in production and look forward to making off-chain logic enforcement a standard part of every Web3 tech stack.”
That said, Cubist also highlights integration depth as a competitive advantage. C2F works with CubeSigner, the company’s secure-by-design, non-custodial key storage and signing infrastructure, and connects to existing key management systems, which should ease enterprise adoption.
Availability, integrations and architecture
C2F is now generally available, and teams can request a demo or access a test environment to evaluate performance and security properties. Moreover, its integration with CubeSigner allows organizations to define custom signing policies that are enforced by verifiable code running inside TEEs.
The platform is intended to support off chain confidential compute for a wide range of Web3 and fintech applications, from DeFi protocols to tokenization platforms and exchanges. Because it operates across multiple chains and leverages hardware-backed isolation, it also aligns with emerging enterprise requirements around data protection and regulatory compliance.
Developers can incorporate C2F as a building block for cross chain private execution, complex governance workflows and risk engines, while retaining the performance benefits of off-chain processing. However, they still obtain strong assurances about what code executed and under which conditions.
About Cubist
Cubist is a key management infrastructure company founded in 2022 and backed by investors including Polychain, dao5, Blizzard and Paxos. The founding team includes a former fintech COO and professors from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California San Diego, who together have published more than 90 peer-reviewed security-related papers.
Members of the Cubist team have designed and specified cryptography for networks such as Ethereum and Avalanche, deployed fine-grained isolation in Firefox, discovered serious bugs in Google Chrome and Linux, and built automated reasoning tools used by companies like Amazon and Certora.
In summary, Cubist’s C2F platform brings hardware-backed privacy and verifiable execution to mainnet Web3 environments, offering developers a way to combine off-chain performance with on-chain style guarantees across multiple blockchains.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2025/12/16/confidential-compute-mainnet-cubist-c2f/
