Developing in Web3: Deploying Privacy-First dApps with Sapphire + ROFL

TL;DR

• Sapphire provides confidential EVM smart contracts. OPL lets existing dApps add privacy without migrating chains.
• ROFL enables verifiable, privacy-preserving off-chain computation.
• Together, Sapphire + ROFL form a full stack for building private, AI-ready web3 applications.

The crypto landscape today is flooded with web3 and AI dApps (decentralized applications). You need to choose the right chain and the right tools to develop and deploy your dApp, as it can make all the difference in attracting the right attention from the end-users. The choices are too many, and they often distract more than add value. It is also hard to come by solid, reliable information to make a decision.

I believe in Oasis as a pioneer of smart privacy for web3 and AI. Let me tell you point by point why I became a believer.

The Tech Stack: Sapphire EVM

In the blockchain trilemma scene, privacy has always taken the backseat, as most protocols emphasize decentralization and scalability. And then there is the debate and confusion of how to frame the rising privacy narrative — is it privacy coin or privacy blockchain?

Oasis has emerged as a pioneer in the field of smart privacy. It is a modular L1 blockchain that aims to finally complete the blockchain picture — decentralization, scalability, and privacy (and security) together.

Privacy-preserving techniques have garnered much attention in recent times. Long before zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), and secure multiparty computation (sMPC) became trending, Oasis had adopted trusted execution environments ( TEEs) for end-to-end encryption and confidential computation.

In Oasis Sapphire, you get the world’s first and only production-ready confidential EVM. Its key features help you build better dApps that are privacy-first.

• EVM compatibility
• Private storage
• Encryption precompiles
• Free view calls
• Web2 authentication
• ROFL (runtime off-chain logic)

So, as a web3 developer, you get to work with smart privacy, cross-chain simplicity, and low technical overhead. How it differs from most other projects also offering privacy solutions is that you get the best of both worlds here — transparent when you need it, confidentiality when it matters. Further, you can build with full spectrum of confidentiality customization — 100% public to 100% private or anywhere in between.

• Build with docs
• Repository research
• Sapphire 101 video tutorial

Deployed already? Use the OPL hack

But what happens if you have already built your dApp on another EVM chain? It is unfeasible to dismantle everything there and start rebuilding from scratch for the sake of privacy. Acknowledging this dilemma, Oasis offers the services of the Oasis Privacy Layer ( OPL).

OPL is simple to use — a few hundred lines of code, practically a plug-and-play solution. Behind the scenes, it uses a message passing bridge and a gas relayer.

It gives the flexibility to leverage Sapphire’s features and functionalities for your dApp right from your home network, paying transaction fees with your chain’s native token. What you assuredly get from this setup:

• Customizable privacy
• Cross-chain convenience
• Productive transparency
• Low complexity
• Access to cryptographic primitives

Learn more about OPL’s technical advantage and utility here, and start building.

The Framework: ROFL

Now, Sapphire is the runtime on-chain logic, but computation-heavy dApps, with end-to-end encryption and/or powered by AI, are a huge challenge. When you add the criteria that the privacy you get and the computations you process should be verifiable and trustless, the feasibility of doing everything on-chain plummets.

The challenges mount when dealing with cryptoAI, as it has two main problems — crypto’s limited application layer and AI’s trust issues. Off-chain computation is a viable answer in this situation. Oasis has thus developed the ROFL framework, essentially working like a decentralized TEE cloud with on-chain privacy and verifiability.

ROFL’s 5-part architecture involves a hardware layer, an application layer, a remote attestation layer, a blockchain layer, and a user interaction layer. Key features include:

• Uncapped computational power
• Tamper-proof processing
• Verifiable execution
• Decentralized key management solution
• Direct access to confidential virtual machines

The reason ROFL is so crucial and pivotal to the next-gen private and trustless web3 and AI dApps can be simply summed up by what it doesn’t need, which you will definitely appreciate.

• No chain dependency
• No coding language dependency
• No prior TEE experience

Start exploring the scope of ROFL with these resources:

• Build with templates
• Build with CLI

Real-World Integrations

The applicability of the Sapphire + ROFL solution, with its impact and scope, is limitless. The features and primitives that ROFL unlocks are also significant.

Already, multiple live collaborations have transpired.

1. Zeph — developing AI companions empowered by DeAI and DeCC
2. Tamarin — empowering secure and private cross-border healthcare data analysis
3. Tradable — trading with privacy-preserving AI insights
4. Flashback — privacy-first AI training that lets users own and monetize their data
5. Plurality — confidential reputation scoring and AI context flow
6. Talos — combining DAO 2.0 and DeFAI in the form of a new model for on-chain sovereign intelligence
7. zkAGI — building PawPad, a privacy-preserving platform for trustless trading agents
8. Heurist — enabling privacy-first MCP servers for AI agents
9. Huralya — building private AI wellness assistants
10. Carrotfunding — servicing on-chain prop trading, introducing a new model for parallel verification of the risk and evaluation engine

Talos and Carrotfunding here deserve special focus, standing out as pathbreaking case studies redefining DeFi.

Final words

The takeaway from all this is that what Oasis offers to blockchain and web3 developers is not just some concept — it’s something real and tangible.
In a space where half-baked or well-intentioned ideas sound promising but often don’t deliver in their execution, a working blueprint for next-gen dApp builders stands out.

So, if you want to deploy your dApp in a web3 universe where privacy, scalability, trustlessness, and AI-ready performance all matter equally, take a moment to explore Oasis — and help shape what comes next.

Originally published at https://dev.to on January 20, 2026.

Developing in Web3: Deploying Privacy-First dApps with Sapphire + ROFL was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.