Zano-Level Privacy for your Favourite Crypto Assets: Confidential Layer goes LIVE!
The wait is finally over, Confidential Layer's bridge has launched today!
Upgrade your Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any supported asset into a private version of itself, with hidden receiver, sender, and amount. Trade it in a private DEX, where every swap is indistinguishable from a typical transaction. All of this with no trust required! To understand how this works and the incredible implications for the Zano ecosystem, read on!
What is Confidential Layer?
Confidential Layer is the first decentralized, non-custodial bridge to enable direct asset transfers between all major blockchain types - including Bitcoin, smart-contract blockchains (EVM, Solana, and more), and privacy blockchains. It interconnects the best of all worlds: the value and capital of Bitcoin, the DeFi capabilities of smart-contract platforms, and the privacy and security features of privacy-focused blockchains like Zano.
Confidential Layer's vision is to position itself as the go-to solution for all asset transfers across any chain in the digital asset space, unlocking both DeFi opportunities and privacy enhancements for Bitcoin and other of the world’s most valuable crypto assets.
Why is This a Game-Changer?
Swapping to a Privacy Coin vs Bridging
It used to be that the only way to get the privacy-preserving properties of privacy blockchains was to swap your Bitcoin for a privacy coin, which meant giving up your exposure to its store of value properties, and swapping your Ethereum assets meant doing away with their DeFi capabilities and existing ecosystem. And of course, this approach often runs into liquidity issues, forcing you to take a loss on your assets.
Now, you can combine the best of all worlds. Instead of swapping, bridge your Bitcoin to Zano, upgrading it (also known as wrapping), allowing you to continue to hold BTC and maintain price exposure, while concealing your balance and transactions using Zano's technology. You can bridge it back (unwrap) to its original network at any time.
Yes, you can have your cake and eat it too!
Similarly, you can bridge an ETH-asset like DAI (decentralized stablecoin), and transact/trade with it privately on Zano while still benefiting from its decentralized issuance and governance that takes place on Ethereum, since your wrapped tokens always stay backed 1:1.
It is important to mention that the entire protocol is also decentralized and non-custodial, meaning no central third party holds your assets at any point - full control of your assets remains in your hands.
Decentralized Private Trading
All upgraded assets enjoy the benefits of Zano's Confidential Assets, including access to Zano Trade: A decentralized exchange where all trades are confidential and indistinguishable from regular on-chain transactions.
- No ID required.
- No MEV bots monitoring and interfering with your trades.
- Self-Custodial, you stay in control of your funds.
- Truly peer-to-peer trading.
In an era where KYC-free exchanges are increasingly targeted, decentralized privacy-preserving alternatives hold incredible value!
How to Use the Bridge (Desktop)
We have prepared a tutorial for bridging from EVM chains to Zano. You can find additional guides for other chains (like Bitcoin) here on Confidential Layer's documentation.
The minimum transaction amount is $100 worth of the asset you want to bridge.
- Head over to https://app.confidentiallayer.com/.
- Select the asset you want to bridge and the amount.
- Source: Select the network where you currently hold that asset.
- Destination: The network where you want to bridge it. (Choose Zano to gain privacy).
- Fill with your destination wallet address (In this case, your Zano address).
- Click on "Bridge".
You will now see the remaining steps to complete the bridge.
Click on "Confirm Transaction" to be prompted with the options to Connect your Wallet on the source network, for Ethereum that's generally MetaMask.
Approve the transaction on Metamask, like you would for any other dApp; then repeat this process for the rest of the steps.
After completing the last step, you should receive the wrapped asset at the destination wallet. This should take no more than a minute.
On Zano Desktop Wallet, this may display as a hidden asset; you'll need to whitelist it:
- Copy its Asset ID.
- Head to the Assets tab (first one), click on the options menu at the upper right corner, select Whitelist Asset.
- Paste the Asset ID, then click Add Token.
Asset IDs for current Wrapped Assets on Zano:
- DAIX:
24819c4b65786c3ac424e05d9ef4ab212de6222cc73bc5c4b012df5a3107eea4 - BTCX:
040a180aca4194a158c17945dd115db42086f6f074c1f77838621a4927fffa91 - ETHX:
93da681503353509367e241cda3234299dedbbad9ec851de31e900490807bf0c - BNBX:
6ca3fa07f1b6a75b6e195d2918c32228765968b54ea691c75958affa1c4073fb
(In the future, the whitelisting process will be automated for popular assets)
Finally, wait ~10 mins for your tokens to unlock, and that's it! You can now use your upgraded asset freely in the Zano Ecosystem. Remember that you will also need to have a small amount of ZANO to pay for transaction fees.
If you need to go back, simply follow the same steps, selecting Zano as the source, and use Zano Companion to connect your wallet to the website. Full guide on Zano Companion here.
Phased Deployment of the Confidential Layer Bridge
The pathways/networks available at launch are:
- BTC → Ethereum, Zano, Bridgeless, Base, BNB
- ETH → Zano, Bridgeless
- BNB → Zano, Bridgeless
- DAI → Zano, Bridgeless
- USDT → Bridgeless
In the second stage of the rollout, we expect the introduction of their custom "Transaction Bundler," which will, in addition to all the bridging paths, also enable cross-chain swaps of native coins, introducing one of the most sought-after swapping pairs: native BTC and native ETH. And of course, enable a new decentralized path to acquiring ZANO.
In the third stage, the Confidential Layer will open up the bridging paths for its own token (CLONE) and the native coin of the Bridgeless blockchain (BRIDGE), on top of which the protocol is built. This stage will also mark the beginning of the trading of CLONE.
According to their roadmap, the innovation doesn’t stop there. Solana and TON will be introduced next quarter (Q3 2025), Bitcoin Cash has also been teased for a later stage, positioning Confidential Layer as the only protocol to interconnect all of these blockchains.
How Does the Bridge Work?
Confidential Layer operates on the Bridgeless L1 blockchain, which enables fully decentralized bridging through a network of validator nodes. For a transaction to be validated, 66% of the validator nodes must sign the transaction, ensuring a secure and trustworthy process. This is powered by an advanced cryptographic scheme known as threshold signatures, based on Shamir's shared secret, achieving a high level of decentralization.
You can find all the technical details and source code at the Bridgeless website:
- Architecture Overview
- Whitepaper/Audit (Reviewed by our Co-Founder Andrey)
- Decentralized Signer Source Code
What this Means for Zano
Increase in the Total Value Locked (TVL)
With Bitcoin and Ethereum boasting a combined market cap of around $2.7 trillion, Zano has massive potential for Total Value Locked (TVL) growth. TVL is a popular crypto indicator among DeFi investors to assess the overall value of assets. When the TVL of a DeFi platform increases, it is often accompanied by a rise in liquidity, popularity, and usability, contributing to the project’s success.
You can now track Zano's TVL on https://zanostats.com. We'll begin including it in our following project updates.
Major exposure from the Confidential Layer community
The CL community has been making waves with its impressive marketing strategy and airdrop campaign. This has resulted in 250k+ followers on their X profile and hundreds of thousands of participants in their airdrop campaign. These people will all discover and use Zano!
Increase in the number of daily transactions
Every transaction on the Zano blockchain requires a fee of 0.01 ZANO, and all transaction fees are burned completely. The bridge could result in tens of thousands of extra transactions going through our blockchain daily, not only from the bridging process itself, but also from all activity involving the new bridged assets. As daily transactions increase, so will the fee burns, adding further deflationary pressure to ZANO's supply.
Convenient to enter and exit the Zano ecosystem
The bridge will connect most of the popular but transparent blockchains with the private Zano ecosystem. Transferring assets to and from Zano's blockchain has never been made easier!
Zano is the first and only integrated privacy blockchain at launch
Currently, the only privacy blockchain integrated is the Zano blockchain. Thus, Zano will temporarily serve as the only working L1 on the privacy side of the Bridge!
Projects that launch a Confidential Asset on Zano can have access to CL's bridge via their API
Last but not least, projects that launch a Confidential Asset on Zano will be able to use the bridge infrastructure of Confidential Layer, making the Zano blockchain even more attractive to build upon.
Confidential Layer will undoubtedly be of incredible value to the Zano ecosystem, paving the way for liquidity to flow from transparent blockchains to privacy blockchains like Zano.
Conclusion
It's been 10 months since we first announced our partnership with CL, and it has been an incredible journey. We sincerely thank all zAnons who were able to share our vision for a private decentralized asset ecosystem, and now it's getting fulfilled. We already have the tools, now it’s time to use them and let the world know.
Welcome to the next stage!