Inco

Market position

Inco positions confidentiality as the remaining unsolved layer of the blockchain stack after scalability and chain abstraction, and describes itself as building a universal confidentiality layer for Web3. It works alongside Zama and OpenZeppelin in the Confidential Token Association, and Zama's CEO Rand Hindi is listed as an Inco advisor. Investor commentary from 1kx frames the market as an infrastructure category with pending institutional demand.

Inco is not a separate blockchain but a modular confidentiality layer added to existing chains, which the company argues preserves base-protocol performance and allows cryptographic techniques to be upgraded independently over time. It emphasizes abstraction of cryptographic complexity so developers can use standard languages and toolchains, native-speed execution with near-zero added latency via TEEs, end-to-end verifiability, non-custodial design with a force-exit path, and post-quantum secure encryption.

Technology

Inco combines trusted execution environments with cryptographic techniques. Inco Lightning executes verifiable compute inside a TEE to deliver confidentiality at the speed of the native chain with minimal added latency; the company states every state transition is verifiable end-to-end so operator theft is not possible, that users retain custody with a force-exit path, and that the encryption scheme is NIST-approved and post-quantum secure. Core primitives are encrypted onchain state, confidential composability between applications operating on encrypted data, programmable access control and decryption rules, and hidden onchain randomness. Inco's earlier Gentry testnet paired the EVM with fully homomorphic encryption, secured by Ethereum via EigenLayer, and the company has said a separate FHE-based trustless confidentiality product remains planned.

Go-to-market

Inco targets developers directly through compatibility with existing tooling (Solidity/Rust, Hardhat, Foundry, Anchor, common wallets) and through testnet deployments on Base Sepolia and Solana Devnet. It builds distribution via ecosystem partnerships and standards bodies — Circle Research, the Confidential Token Association with OpenZeppelin and Zama, the ERC3643 Association — plus application-level partnerships (Tally for onchain voting, Blocklive for ticketing, Toku for payroll, Prism for QR payments), developer hackathons such as the Megapot Summer Game Jam, published research, and a newsletter.

Developers and application teams building on EVM and SVM chains that need confidentiality — confidential token issuers, DeFi protocols, games and prediction markets, governance and identity systems, and consumer payment apps. The company also positions the stack for institutions, citing research indicating that lack of privacy is among the top obstacles keeping traditional finance firms from decentralized finance.

Geography

Headquartered in New York, NY, per the April 2025 press release and FinSMEs coverage. Product reach is chain-based rather than geographic, though one disclosed integration partner, Prism, operates a payments app in Vietnam.

History

Inco raised a $4.5M round led by 1kx announced in February 2024, launching its FHE-based Gentry testnet at the same time. Over the following year it worked with Circle Research on a Confidential ERC20 token standard, co-founded the Confidential Token Association with OpenZeppelin and Zama, joined the ERC3643 Association and implemented a confidential version of that standard, and signed partnerships with Tally, Blocklive and Toku. In April 2025 it announced a $5M strategic round led by the a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator, bringing total funding to $10M, and launched Inco Lightning on the Base Sepolia testnet. Subsequent posts on the company site reference a Solana Devnet beta, an integration by Vietnamese payments app Prism in July 2026, and a Summer Game Jam run with Megapot whose winners were announced in August 2026.

Risks & controversies

The sources describe products that are still at testnet or beta stage (Base Sepolia testnet, Solana Devnet beta), and the FHE-based trustless offering was described in April 2025 as slated for later launch rather than shipped. The TEE-based approach introduces a hardware trust dependency, which Inco addresses through claimed end-to-end verifiability and a force-exit path. No controversies or disputes are reported in the sources.