Privacy approaches,side by side.
Every privacy system involves trade-offs. Here is what the major approaches optimise for, where each falls short — and where Sanect does too.
| Sanect | Aztec | Penumbra | Railgun | Aleo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EVM compatible | ✓native L1 | ~EVM compat layer (alpha) | ✗Cosmos SDK chain | ✓runs on Ethereum + L2s | ✗snarkVM only |
| No per-circuit ceremony | ✓universal SRS | ✓universal SRS | ✓IPA, no SRS | ✗Groth16 ceremony per circuit | ✓universal SRS |
| Works in MetaMask | ✓any EVM wallet | ✗Aztec wallet SDK | ✗Prax wallet | ✓adapter UI | ✗Leo wallet |
| No second seed phrase | ✓signature-derived keys | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Own L1 consensus | ✓CometBFT | ✗L2, Ethereum settlement | ✓CometBFT | ✗contract on host chain | ✓AleoBFT |
| Sub-second blocks | ✓~400 ms | ✗Ethereum settlement | ✓~1 s | ✗host-chain finality | ~~15 s |
| Programmable privacy | ~Solidity public; private contracts planned | ✓private Noir contracts | ~fixed primitives | ✗fixed shield/transfer | ✓Leo private functions |
| Multi-asset shielded pool | ✓native + ERC-20, one circuit | ✓ | ✓native + IBC assets | ✓per-asset contract | ✓ |
| Fast wallet sync at scale | ~indexer today; FMD bytes reserved | ✗client-side state | ✓native FMD | ✗trial-decrypt every memo | ✗trial-decrypt records |
| IBC-ready | ✓Cosmos SDK | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Live on mainnet | ✓chain 7628 | ~testnet | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sanect | Aztec | Penumbra | Railgun | Aleo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sender hidden | ✓nullifier-based | ✓private execution | ✓shielded by default | ✓via relayers | ✓private transitions |
| Receiver hidden | ✓encrypted memo | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Amount hidden | ✓in-circuit commitment | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Transaction graph hidden | ✓shared pool | ✓private state | ✓shielded pool | ✓shared pool | ~record model can leak links |
| Proof system | UltraHonk (Barretenberg) | UltraPlonk (Barretenberg) | Groth16 + IPA | Groth16 (BN254) | Marlin (universal) |
| Trusted setup | ✓universal SRS, shared | ✓universal SRS | ✓none needed (IPA) | ✗per-circuit ceremony | ✓universal SRS |
| Key management | MetaMask-derived via HKDF | Aztec wallet SDK | Prax wallet, own seed | MetaMask adapter | Leo wallet, own seed |
| Anonymity set | shared pool, all users & assets | per-contract state | shared pool | shared pool per deployment | per-program records |
| Sanect | Aztec | Penumbra | Railgun | Aleo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Solidity | Noir | Rust (components) | Solidity + SDK | Leo |
| Tooling | Hardhat, Foundry, ethers, viem | Aztec CLI, nargo, Aztec.js | pcli, pclientd, gRPC | Railgun SDK + EVM tools | Leo CLI, snarkOS, SDK |
| Deploy | forge create / hardhat | Aztec CLI flow | n/a — fixed protocol | integrate via SDK | leo deploy |
| Testing | forge test, Hardhat | Aztec Sandbox | local devnet | EVM tests + SDK mocks | Leo test framework |
| Privacy surface | call ShieldedPool from Solidity | every function private or public | built-in actions only | shield / transfer / unshield | every execution proven |
Aztec
A privacy-first L2 on Ethereum with private smart contracts in Noir — the same Barretenberg stack we use for our circuit. The cost: Ethereum-pace settlement and a new language plus SDK. Where Aztec wins on programmable privacy, Sanect wins on “your existing wallet just works.”
Penumbra
A Cosmos SDK privacy L1 with fast BFT and the cleanest wallet-sync story in production thanks to native fuzzy message detection. Trade-off: its own wallet, VM and ecosystem — no EVM. We reserved FMD bytes in our memo format but kept the Solidity front door.
Railgun
A privacy contract on Ethereum and L2s — same MetaMask, no new chain. The constraints: per-circuit Groth16 ceremonies, fixed shield-and-transfer semantics, host-chain finality. Sanect’s pitch versus Railgun is the same wallet UX on a chain with one universal-SRS circuit and 400 ms blocks.
Aleo
An L1 with its own snarkVM and the Leo language, designed for private applications end to end. The downside for users is the same as Aztec: it is not the EVM world, so wallets, RPCs and indexers don’t carry over. Strong for greenfield privacy apps.
Architecture decisions cascade into everything.
Sanect is a self-sovereign L1: Cosmos SDK + CometBFT consensus, native EVM execution, one binary. Interop via IBC and Hyperlane. Aztec settles to Ethereum; Railgun lives inside a host chain; Penumbra and Aleo are sovereign L1s with their own VMs.
CometBFT BFT
50 validators, ~400 ms deterministic finality. Same tier as Penumbra.
Self-sovereign
No external dependency. Aztec and Railgun inherit Ethereum’s pace.
Full EVM
Standard Solidity plus precompiles. Aztec, Penumbra and Aleo run custom VMs.
IBC + Hyperlane
Live bridge to Ethereum; IBC architecturally ready. Aleo has no native bridge yet.
Numbers, not promises.
Measured and estimated performance characteristics. Where we don’t have direct data, we say so. All numbers are approximate and subject to network conditions.
| Metric | Sanect | Aztec | Penumbra | Railgun | Aleo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block time | ~400ms | N/Asettles to Eth L1 (~12s) | ~1s | host chainEth ~12s, Polygon ~2s | ~15s |
| Finality | instantBFT — 1 block = final | ~15 minEth L1 epoch finality | instantBFT — same as Sanect | host chainEth ~15 min, Polygon ~2 min | ~15s1 block confirmation |
| Proof generation (browser) | ~2-3sUltraHonk WASM prover | variesdepends on circuit complexity | <1slightweight IPA proofs | 5-30sGroth16, circuit-dependent | variesprogram-dependent |
| Max TPS (theoretical) | 2-5k150M block gas limit | Eth-limitedL2 batching helps throughput | ~1kCometBFT-bounded | host chainshares host chain capacity | ~100proof verification overhead |
| On-chain verification cost | ~250k gasUltraHonk verifier | batchedL2 proof aggregation amortises cost | nativebuilt into protocol, no EVM cost | ~300k gasGroth16 on-chain verify | nativesnarkVM handles natively |
| Wallet sync time (fresh) | ~1-3smemo-indexer backend | variesclient-side private state | <1sFMD — fastest in class | 30s-5mintrial-decrypt every memo | variestrial-decrypt records |
Where Sanect wins — and where it doesn’t.
An honest assessment. Some of this is a genuine edge; some of it is other projects being ahead of us today.
- Only privacy solution with full EVM compatibility + native L1 status
- No new seed phrase — existing MetaMask wallet covers everything
- No trusted setup (universal Plonk SRS) — no ceremony, no toxic waste risk
- IBC-ready for Cosmos ecosystem interop
- Sub-400ms BFT finality — deterministic, not probabilistic
- Privacy is optional per transaction — public and private on same chain
- Aztec has private smart-contract execution today; Sanect v1 is shielded transfers only
- Penumbra ships native FMD; Sanect has the memo bytes reserved but the scheme is post-mainnet
- Railgun is live on Ethereum mainnet with existing liquidity and integrations
- Aleo has a privacy-native VM and developer language built for it from day one
- Sanect mainnet launched recently — external audit is underway but not yet published
Convinced? Build on it.
The EVM stack you already know. Native privacy. Sub-second finality.