TLDR
- Aztec Labs relaunched zk.money, a privacy wallet it shut down three years ago, on its Ethereum layer-2, Aztec Network.
- Users send stablecoins to readable tags like bob.zk.money, and payments inside the wallet stay private.
- Deposits from Ethereum remain public, and transactions are capped at $2,500 each during the early rollout.
- The original zk.money drew more than 75,000 wallets and $100 million in volume.
- Vitalik Buterin said this weekend that zero-knowledge proofs could give special-purpose apps “very strong privacy.”
Aztec Labs has relaunched zk.money, a privacy wallet it shut down three years ago. The wallet now runs on Aztec Network, the company’s privacy-first Ethereum layer-2.
The self-custodial wallet went live on Tuesday. It lets users send and receive stablecoins without showing their balances, amounts, or recipients to the public.
The relaunch lets users make private stablecoin payments using simple tags instead of long wallet addresses.
“Onchain transactions between two individuals shouldn’t mean publishing your financial history to the world,” Aztec Labs CEO Joe Andrews said in a statement.
How the zk.money Wallet Works
Users claim a readable tag, such as bob.zk.money. According to Aztec’s posts on X, the tag links to a deposit address through the Ethereum Name Service, or ENS.
Aztec Network is a separate network that settles back to Ethereum. The company’s developer documentation describes it as privacy-first.
Private functions run on the user’s own device. The device creates zero-knowledge proofs, which are cryptographic receipts that confirm a transaction is valid without revealing its details.
Users can send USDC, USDT, or DAI to the wallet from an exchange or an Ethereum wallet. Payments made inside zk.money stay hidden.
However, the privacy has limits. Aztec noted that deposits coming from Ethereum remain public.
Because the wallet is self-custodial, Aztec says it cannot spend or freeze user funds. The company also says no privileged administrator controls the wallet.
Early Limits and the Wallet’s History
The relaunch comes with caps during the early rollout. Each transaction is limited to $2,500.
All users also share a $50,000 daily deposit ceiling.
The original zk.money launched in 2021. Aztec said it drew more than 75,000 wallets and $100 million in volume before the team shelved it to build its own network.
In 2021, Aztec raised $17 million in a funding round led by Paradigm. The company also expanded zk.money with Aztec Connect, a toolkit for linking its privacy tech to DeFi protocols.
The relaunch arrives as privacy moves higher on Ethereum’s agenda. Developers are weighing proposals for next year’s Hegotá upgrade.
One proposal would let privacy pools pay their own transaction fees without intermediaries.
In a post published on Saturday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said Hegotá is “likely to be Ethereum’s last ‘normal’ fork.” He said later work will involve recursive STARKs, automated formal verification, and making the network quantum-safe.
Buterin also wrote that special-purpose apps could get “very strong privacy” through zero-knowledge proofs. He described this as part of his “cryptographic world computer” vision for Ethereum.
Ethereum, the second-largest crypto asset by market cap, was trading at about $2,669.77 at the time of the report, down 2.33% over the past 24 hours.
