Privacy in DeFi: Emerging Projects Leveraging Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Yes. One that stood out to me is Aztec Network, which focuses on bringing privacy to Ethereum-based DeFi using zero-knowledge proofs. What impressed me wasn’t just the tech, but how they applied it to real financial actions like private lending, swaps, and account balances without breaking composability.

In practice, this means users can interact with DeFi protocols without broadcasting their entire financial history to the world, which is a big deal if you’ve ever been front-run or had your wallet stalked on-chain (we’ve all been there).

The broader implication is trust and usability: privacy removes a major psychological and practical barrier for institutions and serious users who are uncomfortable operating in a fully transparent environment. It also reduces MEV-style attacks that thrive on visible transactions.

The challenge, of course, is balancing privacy with regulatory clarity and performance, but projects like Aztec show that privacy doesn’t have to mean isolation. If this model sticks, DeFi starts looking less like a public spreadsheet and more like an actual financial system.

Zcash is an early, prime example of utilizing ZK-proofs, specifically zk-SNARKs, for the purpose of privacy. While many newer projects are focused on utilizing zk-rollups for scaling purposes, Zcash is primarily providing value in terms of shielding sender, receiver, and amount within a transaction, thereby directly answering the on-chain financial privacy and related demand, providing continued privacy beyond the default transparency of most public ledgers.

The key insight here is the weight of practical implications: operational and compliance-related friction for regulated financial use cases. True privacy does not play well with AML/KYC requirements, and for a DeFi project to be safely institutional-facing, it cannot provide just shielded transactions. It also must be the provider of a robust user-selective disclosure and audit service that allows the user to prove compliance to those that they need to prove it to, without deanonymising their entire financial history.

This bifurcates the ecosystem slightly. We see fully private protocols, focused on retail users, and on the other hand, we see the birth of hybrid or permissioned systems with view keys baked into the operations and guardrails from a reporting point of view for enterprises. The real challenge isn’t the proof itself, but creating a system that satisfies the user demand for privacy and the regulator demand for transparency.

The most compelling privacy-first DeFi project right now is Penumbra (Cosmos). It’s a shielded, cross-chain network that leverages Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to make swaps, staking, and transfers private by default. The key here isn’t just ‘hiding’; it’s about fixing market structure.

When balances and trade sizes are exposed in a public mempool, users pay a ‘transparency tax’ through front-running and MEV (Maximal Extractable Value). By shielding intent, Penumbra creates a more resilient market: less copy-trading, fewer targeted liquidations, and a fairer execution environment.

The second-order effect is the ‘Institutional Bridge.’ For traditional finance to move on-chain, confidentiality isn’t a feature—it’s a requirement. You can’t run a professional desk if the whole world can see your position before it’s even filled. The challenge, of course, is compliance. The winners in this space won’t be the ‘anarchy’ platforms, but the ones that pair ZK-privacy with selective disclosure—allowing users to remain private from the public while proving their provenance to regulators. In 2026, privacy is the prerequisite for real-world liquidity.

Stop looking at privacy mixers. Look at Aztec Network.

Current DeFi is broken for big players. It’s like playing poker with your cards face up. If an institution tries to move volume on a public ledger, MEV bots destroy their margins instantly.

Aztec uses ZK-rollups for “programmable privacy.” It encrypts the state, not just the token transfer.

The implication is simple: Business logic comes on-chain. Right now, no sane company puts their payroll or vendor contracts on Ethereum because it’s public. With ZK, you verify the math without revealing the data. That’s the bridge between “crypto casino” and real global finance.