Solana infrastructure company Helius has expanded what so-called confidential transactions can do in a bid to attract institutional activity. The new feature set, collectively referred to as “Confidential Balances,” is “the first ZK-powered encrypted token standard built for institutional compliance without sacrificing sub-second finality,” the Solana Developers account posted on X.
Confidential Balances ropes together a series of three new token extensions on Solana to enable more activities while retaining user privacy. This includes introducing encrypted balances and transfers, the ability to mint and burn tokens while keeping the total supply “discrete” and private fee handling.
In short, the new functionality allows users to convert public token balances into a “confidential state,” privately transfer them to a recipient and revert these tokens to a public balance as needed.
“All of these steps take advantage of homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs behind the scenes so that, while sums are hidden, the system can still verify correctness,” the developers wrote in a blog.
On X, the developers note the system can be useful for “financial use-cases” like encrypted payroll services, business-to-business transactions and other privacy-preserving applications. Additionally, once JavaScript-based ZK-proof libraries are rolled out later in 2025, developers will be able to more easily build “user-friendly browser or mobile wallet integrations.”
Currently, Confidential Balances are “implementation-ready” for Rust-based backends — where server-side solutions manage ZK proof generation and handle encryption keys — as well as third-party “Wallets-as-a-Service” providers. These will “bridge the gap for user adoption until native wallet support matures.”
The concept of privacy-preserving token extensions began with “Confidential Transfers,” which enabled token issuers to keep token amounts “opaque” to the public. The functionality was introduced in June 2024 alongside Solana’s Token2022 framework, a suite of additional features and enhancements designed to broaden the capabilities of SPL tokens.
“The overall aim of this extension is to improve user privacy by focusing on confidentiality, rather than anonymity,” the developers wrote at the time. “Rather than ‘privacy,’ we use the term confidentiality.”
© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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