Yes, it can! Here are the requirements to participate in the Keep it Confidential Hackathon:

-Provide a short summary of your project, including a description of what it is and how you want to evolve it
-Provide a link to your code repository for judging and testing. Code must be open sourced.
-Provide smart contract deployment links
-Include a video (less than 5 minutes) that shows how your project works and why you built it. Videos must be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo or a similar site and made public.

Learn more and join the hackathon today: https://oasisprotocol.org/hackathon

With Sapphire, the contract creator decides which aspects of state are confidential. Smart contracts on Sapphire can have anywhere from full confidentiality to none at all! Learn more at https://medium.com/oasis-protocol-project/get-to-know-sapphire-the-industry-first-confidential-evm-paratime-f26ee0327e74

This is a great question, and one we get asked a lot.

Sapphire enables developers to build smart contracts that keep private aspects of state. Depending on which aspects a developer chooses to keep private, the contracts can be built to range the entire spectrum of confidentiality, from fully public to fully confidential. Sapphire is a potent new tool for Solidity developers and can greatly expand what kinds of Web3 DApps can be built.

The potential use cases for confidential DApps are still being discovered, and we are just scratching the surface. What is clear is there is a real need for confidentiality in Web3 technology. The current state of public blockchains, especially EVM chains where many developers build, does not lend itself to Web3.

With Sapphire, we are opening up a new world of possibilities for blockchain to scale to Web3, but we are doing it with the backing of Solidity developers. If you would like to be one of the first to build a confidential DApp in Solidity, head over to our Keep it Confidential Hackathon page here!

When considering building with confidentiality, there are many web3 applications that are well-suited for Sapphire.. Here are just a few areas that have a strong need for privacy and confidentiality:

DeFi: Adding confidentiality to DeFi enables novel features that have been requested in the Web3 community for a long time. For example with a DEX on Sapphire, it’s possible to keep certain aspects of transactions private. You could conceal the slippage parameters set and make an MEV-resistant DEX since there would be no way for sandwich attacks to take place.

Gaming: There is a lot of value to be added to the Web3 gaming sector by incorporating confidentiality, as most popular Web2 games often have some private components. Due to the transparency that exist with current blockchain networks, it is impossible to have these confidential features on-chain.  To maintain transparency, and keep secrecy in gaming and games of chance, a lot of the game has to move to off-chain environments. This has trade-offs as once the confidential aspects are moved to off-chain environments, they lose the high integrity that blockchain offers. With Sapphire, Web3 games will not have to make these trade-offs as the data can be stored privately on-chain.

NFTs: Sapphire’s confidentiality features could help by enabling more sophisticated auction mechanisms to be deployed. This would make for a much less chaotic and more fair minting and auction mechanism for NFT sales. Oasis also offers Confidential NFTs on Sapphire, where NFTs can also ascribe ownership of data which only they have access to. These NFTs provide added functionality and use cases for NFTs towards a Web3 world.

DID: Decentralized identity can revolutionize the Web3 space as people’s identities can be used across the internet without fear of an invasion of their privacy.
Social: Social applications can benefit massively from Web3, but we have yet to see meaningful adoption. A lot of this is due to issues with building a truly decentralized Web3 social platform. Sapphire’s confidentiality can solve some of those problems. For example on current blockchain networks, users can not choose who can and cannot see their profile or content. With Sapphire and confidential smart contracts, it becomes possible as these smart contracts can keep certain aspects hidden depending on set parameters.

Sapphire is the first confidential EVM-compatible Network. This means that it is the only network where developers can build Smart Contracts in Solidity which can hide aspects of state. This can added flexibility for developers will lead to many numerous performance benefits and improvements in the user experience when interacting with these dapps. Use cases can be seen in a variety of sectors like DeFi, Gaming, NFTs, Decentralized Identity, and Social applications. Just as web2 was empowered by privacy protocols like HTTPS, we believe web3 will be propelled forward from these new functionalities.

The advantage to Sapphire over some Emerald, or Cipher, depends on what type of enviroment and features the developer is looking for. For solidity devs looking to incorporate confidentiality feature, Sapphire is the ideal ParaTime. I hope this helps!