Taurus Launches First Private Stablecoin Contract on Aztec Network

Taurus, a Swiss digital asset infrastructure provider backed by several prominent financial institutions, has announced the deployment of what it calls “the first private stablecoin contract.” This innovative contract combines the confidentiality of zero-knowledge proofs with key compliance elements, providing a level of privacy and security that has been lacking in traditional stablecoins. The contract ensures that only authorized parties, such as issuers, regulators, and law enforcement, can access encrypted balances and transfers. This prevents unauthorized parties from monitoring wallets, reverse-engineering investment strategies, or physically targeting high-value users.

The stablecoin contract is built atop the zero-knowledge Layer-2 Aztec Network. According to Arnaud Schenk, Executive Director of the Aztec Network board, the enforced transparency of public blockchains has been a significant barrier to the real-world adoption of stablecoins. Schenk argues that practical adoption for payroll, intra-company transfers, or day-to-day payments cannot happen if every transaction remains visible to all and immutably inscribed on a widely available ledger. The new contract addresses this issue by providing a private and compliant solution.

Taurus’ novel stablecoin contract supports USDC’s core features, including centralized, admin-controlled mint and burn, as well as the pause and unpause capabilities. This allows for transfers to be halted if necessary. Other key features include address blacklisting to enforce sanctions and other compliance needs, and events logging for a verifiable audit trail. These features enable financial institutions to issue stablecoins in payment or treasury applications while ensuring privacy and regulatory observability.

This latest move by Taurus complements their open-source private security token, launched in February 2025. The announcement describes it as a confidential token standard for debt and equity tokenization, allowing financial institutions to issue tokenized versions of financial instruments on public blockchains while maintaining privacy. JP Aumasson, Chief Security Officer at Taurus, stated that this latest development marks a major step forward for stablecoins, addressing concerns from banks, central banks, and regulators about the privacy and security of stablecoin users.

Taurus’ launch follows the news of the US Senate passing the GENIUS Act in mid-June. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act requires issuers to fully back their stablecoins with US dollars, makes licensing dependent on the total market capitalization of their digital assets, provides safeguards for consumers, and tightens rules to prevent money laundering and terror financing. Senator Cynthia Lummis urged US lawmakers to advance both the GENIUS Act and broader crypto market structure as soon as possible.

Taurus expects the total stablecoin supply to reach $1 trillion-$2 trillion by 2030 as demand increases across institutional and consumer markets, pushed by favorable regulation. This development is significant as it addresses the need for privacy and compliance in stablecoin transactions, paving the way for broader adoption in various financial applications.