ConsenSys Labs conducted a $2.1 million funding round of AZTEC startup, which promises to make transactions in the ethereum (ETH/USD) more anonymous. Other investors include Entrepreneur First, Samos Investments, MOV37 and Charlie Songhurst.
AZTEC, created by mathematician Tom Pocock and nuclear physicist Zachary Williamson, uses zero-proof evidence (also known as zk-SNARKs), a cryptographic protocol that is used to increase anonymity on the Blockchain and was popularized by the Zcash project. The startup claims that their protocol is “twice as efficient as other known technologies on the network.”
According to Pocock, the protocol is primarily focused on banks, and at the moment they are negotiating with “20 leading financial institutions”, among which are “global top-10 banks”.
The launch of the project for the first wave of users is scheduled for January 2019. Pocock says that today large banks prefer private (closed) Blockchains. Nevertheless, it will be beneficial for financial companies to use open Blockchains, but only with full confidentiality of transactions. According to Pokok, until now it was not possible in the open ethereum network, and the activity in the capital markets was limited to private Blockchains.
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