Liquefaction Comes to Sapphire: IC3 Awarded Oasis Grant
Oasis is collaborating with researchers at IC3 and Cornell Tech to explore practical implementations of Liquefaction on Sapphire.
- Researchers have created a new project using Liquefaction for temporary NFT rentals
- The project relies on Sapphire's TEEs to securely manage rental transactions and privileges
- This showcases Liquefaction’s potential to transform digital asset ownership across Web3
Building on their Liquefaction paper published in late 2024, the Cornell Tech team—led by James Austegen under the guidance of Professor Ari Juels—has continued its research into this novel wallet system that renders essentially any blockchain asset into liquid form. Through a research initiative with IC3 and collaboration with Oasis, the team is now exploring the potential of Liquefaction on Sapphire through a new project called "Take My Ape."
The new proof-of-concept showcases NFT ticket sales and rentals, enabling users to temporarily rent a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT with all associated privileges. During the rental period, borrowers can sign messages to access exclusive BAYC members-only spaces, with their address appearing in the Yuga contract just like any standard Ethereum wallet transfer. When the rental period ends, the NFT transfers to the next renter or back to the primary owner.
Leveraging Sapphire
Behind the scenes, Liquefaction relies on Sapphire's Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to store wallet keys securely, hidden even from their "owners," while enforcing restrictions on signing capabilities. The team is also implementing a secondary-price auction mechanism to fairly determine the next temporary owner when multiple users are interested.
Liquefaction enables numerous applications around credentials or tokengating, everything from sports tickets to decentralized platforms. But beyond NFTs, it could also prove useful for applications like OTC trading for vested tokens, reputation, identity, and soulbound tokens, DAO voting mechanisms, cross-chain account abstraction, and more.
Take My Ape serves as a blueprint for future Liquefaction applications built on Sapphire. It also underscores the broader implications of making digital assets liquid, providing an opportunity to rethink ownership in blockchain ecosystems. Oasis is proud to support this work through an Oasis Protocol Foundation grant. Learn more about Liquefaction and try it out for yourself here .
