iExec (RLC) turns to Arbitrum to bring privacy to DeFi

Background on iExec

Founded in October 2016 by Giles Fedark and Haiwu He, iExec is a French-Chinese company based in Lyon whose core activity is managing the eponymous protocol. Initially launched on Ethereum, iExec is one of the ecosystem’s historical projects: its ICO raised 10,000 BTC to launch the RLC token in 2017.

The founding idea behind iExec was to build an open-source, decentralized cloud computing protocol operating as a marketplace, where resource providers offer computing power, developers publish applications, and enterprises pay to access these services.

At a time when privacy concerns were just beginning to surface, iExec was among the first to explore blockchain-based data confidentiality use cases. Over the years, that focus evolved into iExec’s primary mission: giving developers the tools to easily embed privacy into their applications.

Through multiple experiments and course corrections, the narrative shifted. What began as cloud computing tilted toward AI, then ultimately settled on privacy. As a result, iExec never truly found product-market fit, and adoption remained limited. Even as DePIN emerged as 2023’s major theme, iExec struggled to fully capitalize on it.

The scale of the 2017 raise has left iExec with a sizable treasury and the runway to keep building. The question now is how to turn years of experience into real traction, while driving usage and ultimately delivering value to RLC.

That is the crux of iExec’s recent announcement: a launch on Arbitrum and a bid to position itself as the go-to privacy technology stack for developers, combining advanced capabilities with straightforward integration.

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iExec’s Pivot to Arbitrum

A logical and necessary move

iExec’s migration to Arbitrum is more than a simple chain switch. In practice, it’s a strategic repositioning that places the technology developed since 2017 at the heart of one of the ecosystem’s most active blockchains.

Until now, iExec ran on its own infrastructure (a chain called Bellecour) used to secure transactions and coordinate exchanges. While that setup offered control (notably over fees), it significantly constrained adoption: few developers were willing to integrate with a niche network while the broader ecosystem consolidated around dominant chains.

Moving to Arbitrum directly addresses this. iExec’s privacy tools, refined over years, can now reach a far larger pool of developers, applications, and end users.

In numbers, Arbitrum represents more than $4.6 billion in TVL across flagship apps such as Aave, GMX, Uniswap, Pendle, and Fluid. It is currently the 7th-largest blockchain by DeFi TVL and the second-largest Ethereum L2 in that ranking, behind Base.

Over the course of the next weeks and months, iExec will reveal the partners who have already chosen to integrate iExec’s tech stack, showing concrete examples of how privacy tools bring private, permanent, and verifiable communication to users at scale.

A focused bet on privacy

In recent years, iExec has refocused squarely on confidentiality, positioning itself as a provider of privacy modules for Web3. The goal is clear: let developers add privacy building blocks to their apps without standing up complex infrastructure.

For Arbitrum applications, as for any network, these needs are increasingly critical. Recent practices observed on Hyperliquid reignited debate around blockchains’ radical transparency, with calls (including from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao) for “dark-pool DEXs” that protect trader confidentiality. This is precisely the kind of use case where iExec can matter.

iExec’s value proposition is to protect data throughout its lifecycle (storage, transfer, processing) using Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and Confidential Computing. These technologies ensure data remains private even while applications process it.

TEEs and DeCC on Arbitrum

TEEs are secure enclaves within a machine (e.g., GPUs) that run computations completely isolated, physically and logically, from the rest of the system. That guarantees maximum protection for both data and code, even from the device owner. iExec’s move brings a TEE-based solution to Arbitrum for the first time.

Concretely, iExec’s current architecture combines those main components:

• DataProtector: encrypts sensitive data and stores it securely (via Arweave or IPFS). The data owner controls who can access it and when—suited to research datasets, strategic analytics, or personal information.
• iApps: applications designed to run inside secure environments (TEEs), capable of processing protected data without ever exposing it.

Together, these form what iExec calls Decentralized Confidential Computing (DeCC). In other words, privacy is not an afterthought, it's a native module developers can switch on as needed.

In practice, this unlocks two broad paths for builders:

• simply adding privacy features to existing applications through plug-and-play modules, or
• designing privacy-first applications architected around confidentiality from day one.

A new market for iExec?

This pivot could help solve a long-standing issue: the struggle to find a flagship product and true product-market fit. By targeting all dapp developers on Arbitrum (and potentially beyond) iExec automatically expands its addressable market.

Embedding privacy into an active ecosystem like Arbitrum improves both visibility and distribution. DeFi apps, wallets, and infrastructure tools can now activate privacy like a module, without managing the heavy lifting themselves.

The migration also introduces a major shift for RLC’s utility. Historically, iExec activity was hard to measure and concrete use cases were not clearly visible on-chain. On Arbitrum, every integration, confidential transaction, and interaction with iExec’s tools will route through RLC, improving the token’s functional role.

That said, this market is still extremely young, and there is no reliable valuation data to estimate the revenue iExec could capture.

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The privacy market

Although privacy issues are intrinsically linked to the foundations of the crypto market, projects focused on this theme still struggle to attract real investor interest.

At the time of writing, this sector represents $7 billion in market capitalization, driven in particular by Monero ($5 billion), which ranks 40th in the crypto rankings. Whether it's Monero or other representatives such as Zcash, Beldex, or Dash, privacy projects are struggling to stay “on trend” and are attracting very few new holders.

These various projects were built at a time when it was common to launch your own blockchain. However, with the fragmentation of liquidity in DeFi and the lack of application ecosystems developed on these networks, users have very little interest in keeping their funds there. Use cases exist, but they remain very specific and limited to a few individuals.

Thus, iExec's pivot is motivated by the fact that privacy is essential for on-chain finance, but that it needs to be slightly “dusted off” and, above all, developed on ecosystems where activity is already present, such as Arbitrum.

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Conclusion and Outlook

Moving to Arbitrum is a meaningful step for iExec which, despite its longevity and resources, had yet to unlock a genuine adoption flywheel. Concentrating on privacy, a core industry need, while deploying on a high-activity chain gives the protocol a chance to reconnect its technology with a broader market and concrete use cases.

Technically, this refactor isn’t Arbitrum-only. By rebuilding its stack for native integration, iExec could extend its privacy tooling to other L2s and position itself as a multi-chain privacy layer. The groundwork is there for rapid expansion beyond Arbitrum.

One key unknown remains: value accrual to RLC. If adoption of iExec’s privacy modules grows, RLC utility should mechanically rise, but it’s still unclear how revenues will be captured and redistributed to holders. In a market that rewards protocols capable of generating revenue and channeling it to their token, this point is critical.

Finally, it’s worth recalling that the Web3 privacy market, while conceptually essential, remains early and hard to monetize. As with other foundational infrastructure (think oracles), importance does not automatically translate into meaningful revenues. The absence of concrete figures on adoption and flows makes the economic upside of this pivot uncertain.

In short, this repositioning is not a guaranteed success, but it does give iExec a clear trajectory, a robust technical base, and a fresh opportunity to establish a durable role in the ecosystem. The challenge now is to convert that position into measurable adoption while striking the right balance between protocol growth and value creation for RLC.