TLDR
- Aztec Labs has relaunched zk.money, a self-custodial wallet that hides payment amounts, balances and recipients.
- The wallet now runs on Aztec Network, the company’s privacy-focused Ethereum Layer 2.
- Users can deposit DAI, USDC and USDT from Ethereum, with USDC and USDT converted into DAI.
- Deposits, payments and withdrawals are capped at $2,500 each, with a $50,000 daily deposit limit shared across all users.
- The original zk.money launched in 2021, shut down in 2023, and had served over 75,000 wallets before closing.
Aztec Labs has brought back zk.money, a privacy wallet for crypto payments. The wallet shut down three years ago and has now returned on a new network.
LATEST: ⚡️ Aztec Labs relaunched zk.money in alpha, a self-custodial wallet hiding balances, payment amounts and counterparties on its Ethereum Layer 2. pic.twitter.com/s565ryCDRv
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) September 30, 2026
The wallet lets people send and receive money without showing their balance or transaction history to the public. This is different from a normal Ethereum wallet, where anyone can look up a wallet address and see its full history.
How the Wallet Hides Payments
zk.money runs on Aztec Network, a Layer 2 network connected to Ethereum. Once money moves onto this network, the amounts, balances and recipients are no longer visible on a public ledger.
Users can deposit the stablecoins DAI, USDC and USDT from an Ethereum wallet. USDC and USDT get converted into DAI once they enter the system, so DAI becomes the only currency used inside zk.money.
Aztec Labs chose DAI because the company sees it as the most decentralized stablecoin used widely today. Other assets could be added to the wallet later on.
The wallet also lets people use simple names instead of long wallet addresses. A person could send money to a handle like bob.zk.money rather than typing out a full address.
These handles use Ethereum Name Service technology. Users can also control who is allowed to interact with their handle.
What Still Stays Public
Not everything about a transaction is hidden. Aztec’s documentation says a deposit from Ethereum still shows the sender and the amount being moved in.
Only the recipient inside the Aztec Network can stay private. This means the moment money leaves an ordinary Ethereum wallet, part of that transaction is still traceable.
The relaunch comes with strict limits for now. Each deposit, payment or withdrawal is capped at $2,500.
There is also a shared daily deposit limit of $50,000 across all users, and that amount refills over time. Aztec Labs says these limits exist because the system is still new and uses experimental cryptography.
A deposit costs 35 cents plus regular Ethereum network fees. A withdrawal costs 20 cents, and users get 100 sponsored transactions per day inside the wallet.
The wallet also checks Ethereum addresses tied to deposits and withdrawals against a sanctions list. A sealed server helps process operations inside the wallet, though it cannot spend user funds on its own.
The original zk.money launched in 2021 and was shut down in 2023. Aztec Labs said the earlier version was hard to expand and could not scale to a global audience.
Aztec Labs CEO Joe Andrews said the shutdown was not caused by low demand. He said the team spent the years since building the infrastructure needed to support private payments at scale.
That infrastructure became Aztec Network, which is now overseen by the nonprofit Aztec Foundation. Aztec Labs continues to build products, including zk.money, on top of that network.
Aztec Labs plans to connect zk.money to other DeFi protocols on Ethereum, with integrations expected before the end of the year. A mobile version of the wallet is also planned for the same period, though no exact launch date has been set.
Two older Aztec smart contracts, tied to separate and already discontinued products, were exploited back in June. Aztec said those contracts were not part of the current network and that the new zk.money was not affected.
Aztec Labs has raised $125 million to date, including a $100 million round in 2022 backed by a16z crypto and Paradigm.
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