Hardware identity primitive for Arbitrum Stylus — binding ESP32-S3 silicon to on-chain execution. Sybil-resistant DePIN verification without TEE or secure elements.
Stylus Hardware Anchor (SHA) is a reusable hardware identity verification primitive for Arbitrum Stylus smart contracts. It cryptographically binds immutable ESP32-S3 eFuse silicon identifiers to on-chain execution logic, enabling Sybil-resistant DePIN node verification without TEE or secure elements.
THE PROBLEM — DePIN networks assume their nodes are real hardware. Nobody proves it. A single laptop can register a hundred identities and farm rewards — the chain has no idea. Software identities are trivially faked. SHA fixes this at the silicon level.
WHY STYLUS MAKES THIS POSSIBLE — Running receipt verification in Solidity is prohibitively expensive. Stylus WASM batch execution changes the economics:
N=5: 29,748 gas/receipt
N=10: 20,209 gas/receipt
N=20: 15,419 gas/receipt
N=50: 12,564 gas/receipt
Gas per receipt drops sharply as batch size grows. This amortization is impossible to replicate in Solidity at these costs.
FOUR ON-CHAIN GUARANTEES —
Device-Bound Identity: 1 physical chip = 1 on-chain identity derived from manufacturer-burned eFuse registers
Replay Protection: ReplayDetected() custom error — each receipt processed exactly once
Firmware Governance: Execution restricted to approved firmware hashes
Deterministic Verification: Keccak-256 parity across ESP32 firmware, Python middleware, and Stylus contract — 10,000+ test vectors validated
TECHNICAL DETAILS — Blockchain: Arbitrum Sepolia — Smart Contract: Stylus (Rust/WASM) — Contract: 0xD661a1aB8CEFaaCd78F4B968670C3bC438415615 — Firmware: ESP32-S3 (C/C++) — Middleware: Python SDK
LIVE EVIDENCE — GitHub: https://github.com/orthonode/Stylus-Hardware-Anchor Live contract (89+ transactions): https://sepolia.arbiscan.io/address/0xD661a1aB8CEFaaCd78F4B968670C3bC438415615
SHA entered the buildathon with a working Sepolia prototype. During the buildathon period, focus is on: hardening the verification contract, publishing reproducible gas benchmarks, and releasing the Python SDK (anchor-verifier) with integration documentation. The prototype demonstrates ESP32 eFuse silicon binding to Stylus WASM with 10,000 validated test vectors and 12,500–29,700 gas per receipt in batched verification.
Applied for Arbitrum Foundation Stylus Sprint grant ($49,000 — under review). Applied for vlayer ecosystem grant ($10,000 — under review). No funding received to date. Pre-revenue infrastructure project.
