Aleo Network Foundation and Provable Labs have launched Shield Wallet, a self-custodial crypto wallet for private stablecoin transactions using zero-knowledge technology.
Following this announcement, the Aleo Network Foundation and Provable Labs have launched Shield Wallet, a self-custodial cryptocurrency wallet designed to enable private stablecoin transactions and confidential digital asset management using zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography.
Shield arrives as the stablecoin market continues its expansion into institutional and enterprise use cases, including payroll, cross-border settlement, and treasury operations. According to Aleo, stablecoins processed nearly USD 9 trillion in adjusted transaction volume over the past year. Despite this scale, most stablecoin activity continues to operate on transparent blockchains, where transaction amounts, counterparty identities, and account balances are permanently visible on-chain. For regulated financial flows and enterprise contexts, this level of exposure presents practical and compliance challenges.
ZK infrastructure and ecosystem build-out
According to the official press release, Shield is built on the Aleo blockchain, which Aleo describes as the first private smart-contract network to reach mainnet. The wallet encrypts balances, transaction amounts, sender and receiver details, and gas fees by default, applying ZK proofs to keep transaction data confidential without removing it from the blockchain record.
The wallet launch follows what the organisation describes as 18 months of infrastructure development. During this period, Aleo secured integrations across multiple categories of the financial stack. Stablecoin issuers include Circle xReserve and Paxos Labs. On- and off-ramp providers Banxa and HoudiniSwap are integrated, alongside cross-chain infrastructure from Hyperlane. Moreover, compliance and analytics coverage comes from TRM Labs and Chainalysis, while payroll and settlement support is provided by Toku, Bitwave, and Zebec. Validator infrastructure includes Blockdaemon, HashKey Cloud, and Ankr, with additional wallet integrations from Dynamic and Sodot, and staking support from Blockdaemon and Chorus One.
Regulatory context
The launch comes at a point of growing regulatory engagement with the question of on-chain privacy. The tension between on-chain transparency and transactional confidentiality has become a recurring theme in discussions around crypto's readiness for institutional use. Full ledger visibility, while fundamental to public blockchain design, also creates exposure risks in enterprise contexts where counterparty information, settlement amounts, and treasury positions are commercially sensitive.
Shield is available as a self-custodial product, meaning users retain control of their private keys without reliance on a centralised intermediary. The wallet is positioned for both individual users and organisations seeking to conduct stablecoin transactions without public disclosure of financial data.
