Aztec Labs relaunched its consumer privacy wallet zk.money on September 29, 2026, rebranded as Nyx and running on the upgraded Aztec Network’s Alpha V5. The V5 upgrade delivers more than 2x faster private proving and roughly 50% lower transaction costs; post-V5 average fees on the network are reported under $0.05. V5 enables end-to-end private execution on user devices so proofs are generated on phones or laptops and only mathematical proofs are verified by the network.
The return follows a phased sunsetting that began in March 2023—deposits were halted on March 21, 2023 and withdrawals continued until about March 2024—after which Aztec refocused on building a fully decentralized Layer 2. That work produced the Ignition Chain (live November 2025) and culminated in Alpha V5 (July 2026) and private smart contract execution activation on September 21, 2026. Nyx is the first V5 application and includes yield-earning features, signaling a push to let users access DeFi privately.
The relaunch is paired with a decentralization roadmap centered on the $AZTEC token: a token sale in December 2025 raised $59–61 million from over 17,000 bidders, 96% contributing less than $10,000. The network is in its second decentralization stage with community-operated nodes and sequencers rolling out. Roadmap items include private smart contracts and cross-chain privacy integrations that could enable private lending, shielded swaps, and confidential governance. Early on-chain metrics—daily active addresses, transaction volume, and shielded pool size—will be key to judging whether the relaunch achieves sustained adoption.