FHE network Fhenix acquires Sunscreen to accelerate Ethereum privacy layer

Fhenix has acquired applied cryptography startup Sunscreen in a bid to accelerate its roadmap for bringing fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) to Ethereum and other EVM networks. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

As part of the deal, Sunscreen founder Ravital Solomon will join Fhenix to lead the company’s research organization. Solomon has worked extensively on lattice-based post-quantum cryptography and privacy-focused smart contracts.

Sunscreen launched an open-source FHE compiler in 2022 and later expanded into zero-knowledge tooling and developer infrastructure for privacy applications. That stack will be combined with Fhenix’s existing CoFHE engine, which is focused on encrypted computation for EVM chains.

The combined team plans to build quantum-resistant, encrypted computation tools targeting Ethereum, Arbitrum and Base to support privacy requirements across DeFi, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.

Fhenix says it is experimenting with threshold FHE decryption and scalable encryption schemes tailored for heavy blockchain workloads. The joint research group will work on schemes such as TFHE and BFV, along with compiler design and confidential application architectures.

The goal is to enable sensitive on-chain use cases in areas like digital identity, payments and AI, while keeping transaction and strategy data confidential for institutional users. The companies argue that FHE-based infrastructure can address demands from Wall Street and other large players that want to use public blockchains without exposing proprietary logic.