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Sitemap:
- [Welcome to Kakushi 隠し](/index): Kakushi is a private execution layer for institutions building on stablecoin rails.
- [What is Kakushi](/introduction/what-is-kakushi): Money is private.
- [How Kakushi compares](/introduction/how-kakushi-compares): Most privacy systems ask you to move to a new public chain, or give up disclosure entirely. Kakushi does neither.
- [Using Kakushi with AI](/introduction/using-kakushi-with-ai): Every page in these docs is available as plain markdown for use with language models.
- [Quickstart](/quickstart): This is the ten minute path.
- [Zones and the trust model](/concepts/zones-and-trust): A zone is a private blockchain only you can see inside, with a public chain's proofs underneath.
- [The portal](/concepts/the-portal): Money walks in as public USDC and becomes private the moment it crosses.
- [Accounts and custody](/concepts/accounts-and-custody): Your existing wallet address is already a Kakushi account. Nothing to deploy, nothing to enroll.
- [Bring your own address](/concepts/bring-your-own-address): A zone account is just an address, the one an auth key recovers to, with nothing deployed.
- [Virtual addresses](/concepts/virtual-addresses): Hand every customer their own address, the way a bank hands out virtual account numbers.
- [Private transfers](/concepts/private-transfers): Pay fifty thousand people and publish zero salaries.
- [Settlement and composability](/concepts/settlement-and-composability): Two institutions settle in real time without sharing a ledger or seeing each other's books.
- [Proofs and the verifier](/concepts/proofs-and-the-verifier): You cannot fake a balance, and you can prove you are solvent without showing a single customer.
- [Fees and gas](/concepts/fees-and-gas): Your users never hold ETH and never see gas. They pay in the dollars they are already sending.
- [Privacy and disclosure](/concepts/privacy-and-disclosure): The public sees nothing, you see everything, the regulator sees what the law entitles them to.
- [Zone policies](/concepts/zone-policies): Compliance is built into the zone. You configure your program; the substrate enforces it on every transfer.
- [Onboard a customer](/guides/onboard-a-customer): Two calls and a webhook, and your customer has a private on-chain account.
- [Accept deposits](/guides/accept-deposits): Anyone with funds on the host chain can pay into your zone, and it lands as a private balance for your user.
- [Make private transfers](/guides/private-transfers): One call moves money privately. One call pays a whole payroll.
- [Process withdrawals](/guides/withdrawals): Burn inside, release canonical USDC outside, in one call.
- [Settle between zones](/guides/settle-between-zones): Send money to another institution's zone like it is a withdrawal. It is interbank settlement.
- [Handle webhooks](/guides/webhooks): React to money moving. Do not poll for it.
- [Non-custodial integration](/guides/non-custodial-integration): The user signs on their device. You never hold the key, and you still cannot move their money.
- [Compliance and disclosure](/guides/compliance): You hold the whole record. Disclosure is an export, not a negotiation with the protocol.
- [SDK reference](/sdk-reference): The look-it-up layer.
- [Connect and EVM reference](/connect-and-evm-reference): The chain-level integration detail.
- [Run a zone](/run-a-zone): Most operators never run any infrastructure.
- [Protocol spec](/protocol-spec): The deep technical layer, for auditors and engineers integrating below the SDK.
- [Resources](/resources): See Key concepts for the working vocabulary, expanded throughout Core concepts.
- [Product updates](/changelogs/product-updates): Product and protocol changes, release by release.
- [SDK changelogs](/changelogs/sdk): Version-by-version changes to the Kakushi SDK.
- [Node network upgrades](/changelogs/node-network-upgrades): Zone node releases and network upgrades.
-->

# How Kakushi compares

Most privacy systems ask you to move to a new public chain, or give up disclosure entirely. Kakushi does neither. If you are weighing alternatives, three questions cut through most of it: do you have to migrate, can you disclose to a regulator, and what do you actually integrate.

## At a glance

| | Anchored to the chain you already use | Scoped disclosure | You integrate |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Kakushi** | Yes, anchored to Base or Ethereum, assets stay canonical | Yes | An SDK |
| **Tempo (Zones)** | No, its own L1 | Yes | Their chain |
| **Aztec** | No, its own rollup | No | A new public chain and language |
| **Payy** | No, its own rollup | Partial | Their wallet and card |
| **Canton** | No, its own L1 | Yes | A new network and language |
| **Tornado Cash** | Contracts on Ethereum | No | Mixer contracts |

## The detail

**Kakushi** is a private zone anchored to the chain you already use. A zone is also its own network, but because it is anchored to the chain the institution already uses, where the liquidity and users already are, there is no liquidity to bootstrap and no ecosystem to migrate to: no new public chain, no new token, and assets stay canonical, so your liquidity never leaves Base or Ethereum. The disclosure model is the one regulated finance already runs: the public sees nothing, the operator sees its ledger, the regulator sees what it discloses. Solvency and exit are cryptographically enforced, so the operator is trusted to see and to order, never to inflate or steal. You integrate an SDK, not a migration.

**Tempo (Zones)** is its own payments L1 from Stripe and Paradigm, with opt-in privacy through operator-visible zones, the same model Kakushi is built on. The difference is where it lives: liquidity and assets move to Tempo's network, and you build on their chain after migrating to it.

**Aztec** is a zk-rollup with its own native token; you bridge in. Its privacy is trustless, built on encrypted notes and client-side proofs, which means disclosure is not operator-mediated: there is no institution that sees the ledger and can answer a regulator. You also write contracts in a new language, Noir.

**Payy** is its own Ethereum rollup with a planned token. It is private by default with built-in compliance, but it is a notes model delivered as a consumer wallet and card. You join their network as a user; there is no SDK to run a zone of your own.

**Canton** is an institutional L1 with its own token, and it is not EVM. It offers sub-transaction privacy with selective disclosure, designed for institutions, behind a permissioned participant model. Integrating means adopting a new network and a new language, DAML.

**Tornado Cash** is a set of fixed-denomination mixer contracts on Ethereum. It offers obscuration, not disclosure: it breaks the link between deposit and withdrawal and has no compliance path, and no payments surface to build on.

## The short version

Kakushi is the only one anchored to the chain you already use, keeping your liquidity and assets canonical, and gives you confidentiality with named, scoped disclosure, delivered as an SDK rather than a migration.