Ethereum Gets Another Privacy Boost as Aztec Brings Back zk.money

In brief

• Aztec Labs relaunched zk.money, a privacy wallet it shut down three years ago, on its privacy-first Ethereum layer-2, Aztec Network.
• Users send stablecoins to tags like bob.zk.money. Payments inside the wallet are private, but deposits from Ethereum remain public.
• Transactions are capped at $2,500 during the early rollout. The original zk.money drew more than 75,000 wallets and $100 million in volume.

Three years after pulling the plug, Aztec Labs is bringing zk.money back from the dead.

The privacy-focused Ethereum developer relaunched the self-custodial wallet Tuesday, letting users send and receive stablecoins without broadcasting balances, amounts, or recipients to the world.

Users claim a tag such as bob.zk.money, which resolves through the Ethereum Name Service, or ENS, to a deposit address, according to Aztec's posts on X.

"Onchain transactions between two individuals shouldn't mean publishing your financial history to the world," Aztec Labs CEO Joe Andrews said in a statement.

The wallet runs on Aztec Network, which the company's developer documentation describes as a privacy-first Ethereum layer-2, a separate network that settles back to Ethereum.

Private functions run on the user's own device, which generates zero-knowledge proofs. These are cryptographic receipts that confirm a transaction is valid without revealing its details.