Zano Confidential Assets in Action: Real-World Private DeFi

Since the Zarcanum hard fork launched Zano Confidential Assets in March 2024, we've moved beyond theory into practice. What was once a vision of private, secure digital assets has become a thriving ecosystem of real applications solving genuine problems for users worldwide.

From private stablecoins that combine dollar stability with financial freedom, to NFTs that protect collector identity, to seamless cross-chain bridges that bring Bitcoin-level value into the private sphere, Confidential Assets are proving their worth every day. Builders are leveraging this technology to develop tools that emphasize both utility and privacy.

A Quick Primer: What Makes Confidential Assets Special?

Before diving into specific use cases, it's worth remembering what sets Zano Confidential Assets apart. Unlike first-generation tokens on transparent blockchains, every Confidential Asset transaction on Zano conceals:

• The sender (through ring signatures)
• The receiver (via stealth addresses)
• The amount (using Pedersen commitments)
• The asset type itself (through blinded commitments)

This means that whether someone is transacting ZANO, a wrapped Bitcoin, a stablecoin, or an NFT, an outside observer sees nothing but an indecipherable transaction. Each new asset contributes to the same anonymity set, creating a combined privacy pool that grows stronger with every addition to the ecosystem.

Now let's see this technology in action.

Freedom Dollar: The Private Stablecoin DeFi Needed

The Problem

Traditional stablecoins like USDT and USDC offer dollar stability but expose every transaction to public scrutiny. They're also controlled by centralized entities that can freeze funds, demand KYC, and censor transactions at will.

The Solution

Freedomdollar.com (fUSD) is a fully private, censorship-resistant stablecoin. Built as a Confidential Asset on Zano, fUSD targets a $1 peg through market-making backed by over-collateralized, auditable ZANO reserves.

What Makes fUSD Revolutionary?

Actually Private: Unlike "privacy" features bolted onto transparent chains, fUSD inherits Zano's native privacy by default. Transaction amounts, wallet balances, sender and receiver information—all remain completely confidential.

Censorship-Resistant: No admin freeze keys. No central authority can block, seize, reverse or even see your transactions. Your funds remain under your control, period.

Transparently Collateralized: While transactions are private, the backing reserves are publicly verifiable on-chain. The protocol is currently backed with over 8 million USD worth of ZANO in overcollateralization, which also grows naturally through staking.

Real-World Applications

Since its launch in May 2025, fUSD has gained rapid adoption. It's accepted at over 100 SPAR supermarkets across Europe via OpenCryptoPay integration, and it's also one of the preferred payment options on zanobay.com.
Merchants can receive stable-value payments without exposing their business finances. Freelancers can accept payment across borders without intermediaries. Individuals can preserve purchasing power without broadcasting their financial activity to the world.
You can also use it to privately fund a Mastercard debit card through Zebec.

Bitcoin.com went as far as launching a $1 million fUSD rewards campaign to accelerate fUSD adoption, recognizing it as the private stable payment rail that crypto has needed since its inception.

Confidential Layer: Bringing Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum, and More into the Private Sphere

The Problem

Bitcoin holds $2+ trillion in value. Ethereum and Solana host the vast majority of DeFi activity. But these chains expose every transaction to permanent public scrutiny. Swapping for privacy coins means giving up exposure to these assets. Traditional bridges introduce centralized custodians and trust assumptions.

The Solution

Confidentiallayer.com provides a fully decentralized, non-custodial bridge that allows users to wrap major crypto assets into private Zano-based equivalents while maintaining 1:1 backing.

Key Features

NO Custodians: The bridge operates through a network of validator nodes using threshold signatures based on Shamir's Secret Sharing. No single party ever controls the bridged funds. Transactions require 66% of validators to sign, ensuring security through decentralization.

NO Centralized Trusted Actors: Unlike bridges that rely on multisig wallets controlled by known entities, Confidential Layer distributes trust across a decentralized validator network built on the Bridgeless L1 blockchain.

Actually Permissionless: Anyone can bridge assets in or out at any time without registration, KYC, or approval from any central authority.

Available Assets

Currently, users can bridge and thus upgrade with privacy the following assets:

• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Cash
• Ethereum
• DAI
• TON
• Solana
• BNB

Once bridged, these assets become true Confidential Assets with hidden amounts, hidden senders/receivers, and hidden asset types. You maintain price exposure to your Bitcoin or favourite asset while gaining Zano-level privacy.

Why This Matters

Imagine holding Bitcoin but being able to transact it completely privately. Or moving Ethereum-based assets like DAI across the world without exposing your balance or destination. That's what wrapping through Confidential Layer enables. You can have your cake and eat it too.

Major wallets like Edge have integrated support, while Bitcoin.com Wallet is in the process. These integrations make the bridging process as simple as any other swap. And because Zano is the only privacy blockchain integrated at launch, all bridged liquidity flows through our ecosystem, substantially increasing the Total Value Locked (TVL) and transaction volume on the Zano blockchain.

Zano Trade: Where Privacy Meets Liquidity

The Problem

Decentralized exchanges on transparent blockchains expose your trading strategy to the world. MEV bots monitor the mempool and front-run your orders. Your portfolio composition and trading history become public information. Centralized exchanges demand KYC and can freeze your funds.

The Solution

Trade.zano.org is a decentralized exchange built on Ionic Swaps, enabling truly private peer-to-peer trading of all Confidential Assets.

What Sets Zano Trade Apart?

NO Custodians: Your funds never leave your wallet until the swap executes.

NO User Registration: No accounts, no emails, no KYC. Just connect your Zano wallet through Companion and start trading.

Private Trades: Every swap is indistinguishable from a regular Zano transaction. No one can see what asset types, amounts, or addresses were involved.

NO MEV: Because swap details are only visible to the participating parties, there's no mempool for bots to monitor. No front-running, no sandwich attacks, no value extraction.

How Ionic Swaps Work

Traditional atomic swaps have a critical flaw: one party must commit first, giving the other party an unfair advantage to back out if market conditions change. Ionic Swaps solve this through equal optionality. Both parties commit simultaneously in a single transaction that either completes fully or reverts completely. Neither side can be exploited.

The entire swap confirms in approximately 1 minute (1 block), providing fast settlement while preserving complete privacy throughout the process.

Growing Liquidity

With the Confidential Layer bridge now live, Zano Trade hosts trading pairs for BTCX, ETHX, SOLX, and more against ZANO, bringing real liquidity from the world's most valuable assets into a private trading environment. Any new Confidential Asset launched on Zano can immediately access this liquidity through trustless, private swaps.

Obscura: NFTs Without Surveillance

The Problem

Traditional NFT platforms expose your entire collection, transaction history, and wallet balance to anyone who looks. Buy an expensive NFT? Everyone knows. Collect politically sensitive art? It's all public. Want to use NFTs as event tickets without broadcasting your attendance? Impossible on transparent chains.

The Solution

Obscura.art is a privacy-first NFT platform built on Zano Confidential Assets, enabling creators to issue NFTs that function as access tokens while keeping ownership completely private.

Privacy-Preserving Features

When you hold an NFT on Obscura:

• The public can see that the Obscura asset type exists
• Only you know which specific NFTs you own
• Transfers, balances, and ownership remain hidden by default
• All metadata is embedded in the asset and stored on IPFS, removing reliance on centralized servers

Use Cases for Private NFTs

Exclusive Community Access: Create token-gated Discord servers or membership communities without exposing who the members are.

Event Tickets: Issue NFT tickets for conferences or concerts that function as proof of purchase without broadcasting attendee identities.

Digital Art Collections: Collect valuable art without advertising your wealth or taste to potential attackers.

Real-World Asset Tokens: Prove property and trade physical goods in private.

Loyalty Programs: Businesses can issue private loyalty tokens that customers accumulate and redeem without exposing spending patterns.

Because Obscura NFTs are true Confidential Assets, they inherit all the privacy properties of the Zano blockchain while maintaining standard NFT functionality for creators and collectors.

How Are These Assets Protected?

Every Confidential Asset on Zano benefits from multiple layers of cryptographic privacy. Let's dive in deeper:

Hidden Sender: Ring Signatures (Upgrading to FCMP)

When you send a Confidential Asset, your transaction is mixed with multiple decoy outputs in a ring signature. This makes it unreliable to determine which output was actually spent. Current implementations use d/v-CLSAG ring signatures with plans to upgrade to Full-Chain Membership Proofs (FCMP), which will expand the anonymity set to the entire blockchain history.

Hidden Receiver: Stealth Addresses

Every transaction generates a one-time stealth address for the recipient. Even if you publish a receiving address, observers cannot determine if or when you received funds at that address. Only the sender and receiver can make this connection.

Hidden Balances: Pedersen Commitments

All amounts are encrypted using Pedersen commitments, a Zero-Knowledge cryptographic technique that allows network validation without revealing actual values. The network can verify that inputs equal outputs without knowing how much is being transacted. This privacy is maintained even while staking.

Hidden Asset Type

The asset identification information itself is blinded using the same commitment schemes as transaction amounts. An observer cannot distinguish whether a transaction involves ZANO, fUSD, BTCX, or any other Confidential Asset. They're completely indistinguishable.

Fungibility by Design

Because all transactions are private by default, there are no "tainted" coins on Zano. A BTCX received today is identical to one received a year ago. This true fungibility is critical for any asset aspiring to be money, and it's only possible with privacy as a base layer property.

Hybrid PoW/PoS Consensus

All these Confidential Assets are secured by Zano's unique hybrid consensus algorithm combining Proof of Work and Proof of Stake. This makes 51% attacks exponentially more difficult. An attacker would need to control both a majority of the hashpower and a majority of the staked coins simultaneously—a economic and technical feat that's practically impossible to achieve.

The Bigger Picture

What we're seeing isn't just a collection of isolated applications. It's the emergence of a complete, self-contained private financial ecosystem.

Want to hold Bitcoin privately? Bridge it through Confidential Layer. Need stable value? Swap for fUSD. Want to trade without surveillance? Use Zano Trade. Creating digital collectibles or access tokens? Launch on Obscura.

Every transaction, every swap, every transfer remains private by default. There's no opting in to privacy features or paying extra for confidential transactions. It's simply how the system works.

And because all these assets share the same anonymity set, each new project strengthens the privacy of every other asset in the ecosystem. A transaction involving fUSD is indistinguishable from one involving BTCX or an Obscura NFT. They all benefit from the same robust cryptographic protections.

Looking Forward

The applications we've covered represent just the beginning. It's important to note that Confidential Assets are still a work in progress. While the foundation is solid and proving itself in production today, the technology will become increasingly programmable over time, unlocking even more flexibility for broader applications.

The Zano Confidential Assets framework is open for any builder who values privacy and security. Before the end of the year, we plan to launch the Zano Grants Program to kickstart ecosystem growth and attract many more builders to Zano.

Projects launching Confidential Assets on Zano can leverage existing infrastructure, such as the Confidential Layer bridge API, integrate with Zano Trade for instant liquidity, and tap into a growing ecosystem of privacy-conscious users and developers. The tools are ready.

The foundation has been built. The technology is proven. Real users are already benefiting from genuinely private digital assets that don't compromise on functionality, security, or decentralization.

This is what DeFi was supposed to be: permissionless, private, and secure. Welcome to the future.

Interested in building on Zano or learning more about Confidential Assets? Join our community and explore our documentation on intro.zano.org and links.zano.org.