Aztec Labs relaunches zk.money wallet for private stablecoin payments
In brief
- Aztec Labs relaunched zk.money on Tuesday, three years after shutting the wallet down.
- Tags like bob.zk.money, claimed by users, resolve through ENS to a deposit address.
- Limits: $2,500 per transaction, plus a $50,000 daily deposit ceiling shared across all users.
- Original zk.money drew more than 75,000 wallets and $100 million in volume, Aztec said.
How the wallet works
Users claim a tag such as bob.zk.money, which resolves through the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to a deposit address, per Aztec's posts on X. From there, they can send USDC, USDT or DAI from an exchange or an Ethereum wallet.
Private functions run on the user's own device. That device generates zero-knowledge proofs, which confirm a transaction is valid without revealing its details. There's a catch (and Aztec flagged it itself): deposits from Ethereum remain public, while payments made inside zk.money stay hidden.
Limits apply at launch. Aztec said transactions are capped at $2,500 each, and all users share a $50,000 daily deposit ceiling.
Aztec also said that because the wallet is self-custodial, it can't spend or freeze user funds, and no privileged administrator controls it. The company described the network it relaunched on as "fully decentralized."
"Onchain transactions between two individuals shouldn't mean publishing your financial history to the world," Aztec Labs CEO Joe Andrews said in a statement.
A second run for zk.money
This isn't zk.money's first life.
Aztec said the original zk.money debuted in 2021 and drew more than 75,000 wallets and $100 million in volume before the team shelved it to build its own network. That same year, Aztec raised $17 million in a Paradigm-led round, and it later expanded zk.money with Aztec Connect, a toolkit for plugging its privacy tech into defi protocols.
Privacy on Ethereum's agenda
The relaunch lands while Ethereum developers weigh proposals for next year's Hegotá upgrade that would let privacy pools pay their own transaction fees without intermediaries, Decrypt reported. In a weekend post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said special-purpose apps can get "very strong privacy" through zero-knowledge proofs as part of his "cryptographic world computer" vision.
Frequently asked questions
How does zk.money keep stablecoin payments private?
Private functions run on the user's own device, which generates zero-knowledge proofs confirming a transaction is valid without revealing its details. Aztec noted that deposits from Ethereum remain public, while payments made inside zk.money stay hidden.
What are the limits on the relaunched zk.money wallet?
According to Aztec's posts on X as reported by Decrypt, transactions are limited to $2,500 each at launch. All users also share a $50,000 daily deposit ceiling. Users can send USDC, USDT or DAI from an exchange or Ethereum wallet.
