Confidential Consortium Framework (CCF)

CCF replaces a single administrative root with a constitution—a JavaScript script that defines the rules for membership and operation. All changes to the network, such as adding new members or updating the application code, are governed by member votes recorded on a tamper-proof ledger. This ensures no single operator can unilaterally alter the service, providing transparent, auditable control for all consortium members.

Every node in a CCF network runs its core logic inside a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)—a hardware-isolated enclave. This guarantees the confidentiality and integrity of data and code during execution, protecting it from the host operating system, cloud operators, and other tenants. CCF supports multiple TEE backends, including Intel SGX and AMD SEV-SNP, providing a hardware root of trust for all computations.

CCF maintains a Merkle tree-based ledger that records every transaction, governance vote, and state change. This cryptographic structure makes the log immutable and append-only; any attempt to tamper with a historical record is immediately detectable. The ledger provides a verifiable audit trail that allows any third party to cryptographically prove the exact sequence of operations and the integrity of the service's history.

CCF is designed for Crash Fault Tolerance (CFT) using the Raft consensus protocol. A network of nodes elects a primary that replicates a log of all transactions to a majority of followers. If the primary fails, a new leader is automatically elected, ensuring the service remains available. This architecture provides strong consistency guarantees and is resilient to node failures without sacrificing performance.

Before any client or member interacts with a CCF node, they perform remote attestation. This cryptographic protocol verifies two things: that the node is running genuine CCF code inside a valid TEE, and that it is a recognized member of the consortium. This process establishes a verifiable trust anchor without relying on the reputation of the cloud provider, ensuring the service's integrity from the moment a connection is established.

A single CCF network can host multiple independent, logically isolated applications. Each application has its own private JavaScript runtime and state, managed by a shared governance layer. This multi-tenancy allows a consortium to operate a single infrastructure for diverse use cases—such as a confidential token exchange and a private voting system—while maintaining strict separation between their data and logic.

CCF serves as a transparent, decentralized Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for managing Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs). A consortium of trusted issuers can govern the DID registry, with all state transitions recorded in a tamper-proof, append-only ledger.

• Key Benefit: Eliminates single points of failure in identity systems.
• Mechanism: The CCF network acts as a verifiable data registry, where credential revocation lists and DID documents are stored with cryptographic proof of integrity.
• Example: Government agencies and telecom providers forming a consortium to issue and revoke mobile driver's licenses without a central authority.

Financial market infrastructures use CCF to build atomic settlement networks that bridge disparate ledgers without exposing proprietary trading strategies. The framework's confidential transactions ensure that trade details are visible only to counterparties, while regulators maintain a cryptographic audit trail.

• Key Benefit: Reduces settlement latency from days to seconds.
• Mechanism: Smart contracts executed inside the enclave atomically swap digital assets, with the receipts providing non-repudiable proof of execution.
• Example: A consortium of central and commercial banks operating a wholesale CBDC platform where inter-bank transfers settle instantly with embedded compliance checks.

CCF provides a secure aggregation service for federated learning, replacing the traditional trusted central server with a network of enclaves governed by the data owners themselves. Model updates are decrypted and aggregated entirely within the hardware-protected boundary.

• Key Benefit: Provides cryptographic proof that the aggregator cannot inspect individual client gradients.
• Mechanism: Clients encrypt model updates to the CCF enclave; the enclave performs secure weighted averaging and publishes the new global model, with an auditable receipt of the computation.
• Example: A consortium of hospitals collaboratively training a tumor detection model without any single hospital or the aggregator accessing raw patient data or individual model updates.

CCF acts as a universal, immutable ledger for software bill of materials (SBOM) and build attestations. A consortium of software vendors and consumers governs the network, ensuring that no single entity can tamper with the provenance records of critical open-source or proprietary components.

• Key Benefit: Enables real-time, cryptographically verifiable compliance with Executive Order 14028.
• Mechanism: Build pipelines submit signed in-toto attestations directly to the CCF network, which validates signatures and records the metadata in a tamper-proof Merkle tree.
• Example: A consortium of cloud providers and enterprise users maintaining a shared registry of verified container image signatures, ensuring that a compromised CI/CD pipeline cannot rewrite release history.

CCF enables data clean rooms where multiple parties can contribute sensitive datasets for joint analysis without revealing raw data to each other or the platform operator. The governance framework ensures that only pre-approved queries are executed.

• Key Benefit: Enforces data usage policies through code, not just contracts.
• Mechanism: Analysts submit queries that are executed within the enclave; only the differentially private or aggregated result is released, with a full audit log of who queried what and when.
• Example: A consortium of retail banks sharing fraud indicators to improve collective detection models without exposing their individual customer transaction histories.

CCF provides a consortium-governed alternative to centralized certificate transparency (CT) logs, eliminating the single-operator trust model. Multiple Certificate Authorities (CAs) and browser vendors jointly operate the log, ensuring no single entity can split-view or tamper with the log.

• Key Benefit: Prevents a compromised CA from hiding mis-issued certificates.
• Mechanism: The CCF network maintains a cryptographically consistent, append-only Merkle tree of all issued certificates, with gossip protocols ensuring global visibility.
• Example: A consortium of browser vendors and CAs operating a next-generation CT log that is resilient to the compromise of any single member.