Confidential finance & markets

Three architectures for confidentiality on public blockchains, and what the institutional infrastructure choice looks like in 2026

Every major custodian, market maker, and stablecoin issuer evaluating public-blockchain rails this year is implicitly choosing among three architectures for confidentiality: operator-controlled environments anchored to a public chain (Tempo Zones), client-side zero-knowledge proofs (Aztec), and fully homomorphic encryption (Zama). Each forces a different conversation with regulators,