nXCC is a flexible, highly customizable, and programmable platform that leverages Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to facilitate secure off-chain computation and seamless data movement between blockchain networks and traditional web infrastructures (Web2). Recognizing the challenges posed by the proliferation of Layer 2 solutions and the resulting fragmentation of users and assets, nXCC offers a secure and efficient means to bridge these ecosystems.
Can you briefly present your team?
nXCC is developed by Layer8 Institute, a Slovenian non‑profit, together with collaborators elsewhere in Europe. This project was led by Nick Hynes with Mitar Milutinović as as executive director, Andrea Feher covering research, user experience, accessibility and project management, David Marn focusing on architecture, development, data, security and privacy, and Maša Dobrina contributing to research, development and data analysis.
How did you come up with this project idea and what benefits will it bring to the end users?
The starting point was simple: new Layer‑2 and Layer‑3 networks appear quickly, but connecting them usually involves long, costly integrations with large bridge operators. For many projects, that cost and lead time are a barrier.
Our team has worked for years with Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). Blockchains assume almost no trust between participants and compensate with heavy protocols. In practice, many real systems involve parties who do trust some operators not to attack the system and hardware supporting it. nXCC makes those assumptions explicit: do not let your enemies run your software; let acceptable operators run it, and write that into programmatic policy.
With that in place, a lot of cross‑chain logic can run in a single TEE, or a small set, instead of a large validator network. When more value is at stake, you can increase the number and diversity of operators. End users benefit from faster and cheaper cross‑chain actions (moving tokens, data, credentials, rewards) and from the fact that sensitive logic and data are processed inside TEEs under clear, auditable rules.
How is TrustChain supporting your growth and what role does it play for the next steps in your development?
When we joined TrustChain we already had earlier TEE work and a prototype, but the cross‑chain aspects were not fully shaped. The programme gave us the opportunity to do a clean re‑implementation with bridging as the primary focus: define the core protocol, test it with pilots and measure its behaviour rather than relying on intuition.
TrustChain also provided structure around user‑centric design, sustainability and governance. Regular reviews pushed us to simplify the architecture, document the trust model, and think concretely about who runs nXCC and why. Our next steps build on this base: we are packaging the core as a small, easy‑to‑use service and looking for further real‑world workflows where the same approach adds value.
Why did you apply to the TrustChain call and has your vision changed since then?
We applied because there was a clear fit between the call and what we were already working on: trustworthy data and asset flows, decentralised infrastructures and practical use cases. We also wanted to participate in the community to test whether our approach made sense in real-world applications.
Our vision has been sharpened. We started from a broad idea of a “serverless TEE” platform that could support many confidential workloads, one of which was bridging. Through TrustChain we narrowed this to a clear role: nXCC is a bridge, and the design should be optimised for cross‑chain interoperability. That focus gave us a cleaner architecture and a developer experience that is easier to use.
What is the most valuable takeout from the TrustChain project and why was the topic of the Open Call important to you/your team?
The most valuable outcome for us was the combination of technology, users and exploitation in one framework. We were encouraged to talk to stakeholders, watch how developers use the system and feed that back into the protocol, the tooling and the business model. This kept the project grounded.
The Open Call topic was important because it matches our motivation: an internet where identities, data and value can move between systems without being locked into one chain or one stack. Efficient, decentralised interoperability is essential for that. nXCC is our contribution: a way to express trust assumptions clearly and to realise fast, programmable cross‑chain workflows, including applications that should be robust against single points of failure.
Did you establish collaboration with any of the TrustChain teams or plan for any kind of synergies? If yes, what is the biggest potential in such collaborations?
During the project we worked closely with external pilots and also engaged with several TrustChain teams—especially those in identity and data governance—on how their solutions could benefit from cross‑chain and confidential execution. The main synergy we see is nXCC acting as confidential, policy‑driven “glue” beneath these systems, so that identity, credential and data‑space layers can connect to multiple ledgers and legacy systems and run multi‑chain workflows without changing their existing user interfaces or governance models.
What are your expectations regarding the TrustChain software ecosystem and its contribution to the NGI priority areas?
TrustChain is assembling a set of open, decentralised building blocks across areas such as digital identity, data privacy, interoperability and sustainability. We expect this ecosystem to mature into a practical toolbox that projects can adopt rather than re-implementing core capabilities from scratch.
In the context of the NGI priority areas, the contribution is clear:
- Decentralisation and trust: TrustChain projects demonstrate user-controlled identity, data governance and verifiable infrastructure, helping reduce dependency on central intermediaries.
- Security and resilience: The ecosystem encourages auditable, energy-efficient and fault-tolerant architectures that improve the robustness of internet services.
- Collective intelligence and inclusion: By lowering the barrier for smaller teams and emerging ecosystems to access advanced technologies—such as privacy-preserving computation or cross-chain interoperability—it broadens participation and innovation.
nXCC fits into this picture as one of the interoperability and secure-execution components: a mechanism that allows TrustChain-developed protocols and applications to operate across multiple chains and systems, with clear trust assumptions and manageable operational costs.
What are the next steps for your team?
Building on the work in TrustChain, our focus is on consolidating nXCC as a small, focused Infrastructure‑as‑a‑Service offering. That means continuing to harden the core, polishing the web console and self‑service tooling, and improving monitoring and resource management so that teams can run cross‑chain workers efficiently without having to think about TEEs or cluster operations.
In parallel, we are extending and refining the pilot use cases that proved most promising during the project and using them as templates for new users. As the IaaS matures, we plan to apply the same confidential‑compute and policy model to a modest number of adjacent problems—such as privacy‑preserving data exchange and selected AI‑related workloads—while keeping nXCC’s primary identity as a bridge for fast, programmable multi‑chain workflows.
What is the message you would give to new and potential applicants to TrustChain Open Calls?
TrustChain is a good place to develop internet infrastructure with some discipline. The funding is important, but the mentors, structure and peer projects are at least as valuable. You should expect your initial idea to change under detailed technical and business feedback, and that is positive: in our case, nXCC left the programme with a clearer scope, a better architecture and a more realistic exploitation plan. For teams who welcome that kind of process, we would recommend applying.