Solana’s confidential balances go live on mainnet

Solana developers have announced the launch of Confidential Balances on mainnet, introducing a new token standard that allows for encrypted transfers and balances.

Confidential balances token extensions are live on the Solana (SOL) mainnet, not long after the blockchain network’s developers introduced “token extensions.” Now with mainnet support, users can tap into zero-knowledge proofs to benefit from privacy-focused transactions and tools.

Quicknode, which announced the deployment on Solana, noted that this milestone brings ZK-powered token transfers and hidden balances among others. 

“With the launch of Confidential Balances on Solana, developers can now enable encrypted token balances and transfer amounts. All while maintaining Solana’s performance advantages,” the platform posted on X.

The developer community can now build privacy-focused merchant payment solutions, payroll systems, institutional transfer tools and consumer apps, leveraging Solana’s speed.

Quicknode said stablecoin project Agora is the first project whose token taps into confidential transfers. The real-world use cases focused Agora Dollar is live on Solana, with this bringing its institutional-grade discrete payroll to users.

Unlike traditional blockchains, confidential balances give users control over their financial information on-chain. The technology encrypts token balances and transfers, making them private. This means that while user accounts and transactions remain visible, the balances in these accounts or the value of the assets transferred are encrypted.

As highlighted in a blog post, confidential balances taps into two key features – confidential transfer and confidential transfer fee. 

The former obscures token movements while the latter allows for confidentiality of fees. Solana developers are eyeing another feature “Confidential MintBurn” that will enable private token creations and burning.

Ilan Gitter, lead engineer of payments and commerce at Solana Foundation commented via X:

“Confidential balances can not only bring privacy to Solana but also open the doors to asset flows where balance privacy is essential (institutional payments etc). The devex is still a bit rough but if there’s one thing Solana knows how to do is chew glass and spit out sculptures,”