Why Partisia’s Blockchain May Be Uniquely Placed to Solve the Data Privacy Issue

The “unparalleled” nature of Partisia Blockchain’s “provenance and depth of experience” makes it uniquely placed to solve the problem of data privacy in public blockchains, Adrienne Youngman, CEO of Partisia Blockchain Foundation told CoinDesk in an interview on Tuesday.

Privacy has been a weakness for public blockchains for years causing enterprises and institutions to be reluctant in using the technology to solve real world problems because it reveals sensitive data. Earlier this year, crypto analytics platform Arkham’s CEO Miguel Morel said “Publicly available blockchains are probably the worst possible way of keeping one’s private information private.”

Partisia says it offers “complete data privacy” as the “industry’s most secure,” interoperable token and data bridge using advanced multiparty computation (MPC) to bring privacy to public blockchains, helping anyone trying to implement complex use cases affecting the average person. But what made Partisia uniquely positioned to offer this solution when similar service providers such as Fireblocks, Zama.ai and Chainlink are visible competitors.

Youngman and Partisia’s Chief Product Officer Mark Bundgaard said its depth of experience, a result of its origins which go back 36 years makes it unique. In 1988, Danish cryptographer Ivan Damgård co-wrote the first paper on multiparty computation (MPC) while pursuing his PHD studies in Aarhus University.

He would also co-invent the Merkle–Damgård construction, which is used in influential cryptographic hash functions. By the time of the 2008 financial crisis, Damgård was a full professor at the university and had founded Partisia, a Denmark based tech group. Partisia applied MPC to solutions for the Danish and Norwegian governments, and multinational corporations, before combining it with blockchain for private deployments.

“Partisia was founded to tackle a critical ‘real world’ challenge: enabling collaboration on sensitive data without compromising privacy,” Youngman said. “Our blockchain draws on decades of cryptographic expertise from pioneers like Ivan Damgård allowing us to build solutions that not only overcome barriers to real-world adoption but also create entirely new business models, giving individuals and enterprises unprecedented control over their data.”

Youngman said Partisia blockchain has a proven track record of over 16 years, including with the Danish health authorities to use patients’ data without revealing their identity. It has also collaborated with global leaders like Bosch and humanitarian institutions like the Red Cross, with whom they are working to make aid-distribution in conflict zones more efficient and safe.

MPC is a cryptographic technique secures secrets by sharing them among multiple parties ensuring that no single party has complete control over the wallet, increasing security. It’s different from Zero Knowledge Proofs because it offers more composability or more combinations, and makes it possible to run more complex queries. ZKPs validate knowledge without revealing it.

The MPC token is also the Partisia blockchain’s native token.

Read More: MPC Explained: The Bold New Vision for Securing Crypto Money

UPDATE (Oct. 23, 11:25 UTC): Adds images of Adrienne Youngman and Ivan Damgård.