【Confidential balances】New feature on Solana to encrypt token balances and transfer amounts to ensure confidentiality / Token-2022 extension / @solana_devs

Confidential Balances is a feature added to Solana's Token-2022 extension, a token privacy feature that guarantees legitimacy while encrypting balances and transfer amounts.

Good morning.
Mitsui from web3 researcher.

Today we researched Confidential balances, which was just announced by Solana on April 9.

📝Summary｜What are Confidential balances?
🤫Comparison｜Relation to other privacy features
🖐️ use cases｜Corporations and institutionsBoosting investors
💬Summary and discussion

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🧵TL;DR

• Confidential Balances is a feature added to Solana's Token-2022 extension, a token privacy feature that guarantees legitimacy while encrypting balances and transfer amounts.

• It utilizes zero-knowledge proof and quasi-isomorphic cryptography to keep transaction "amount" and "balance" information private, while allowing for opt-in disclosure by auditors.

• The system is designed for use cases that require confidentiality, such as payroll, B2B payments, and OTC transactions, and has already been implemented by Agora and others.

• It is designed to ensure both privacy and regulatory compliance, and is expected to become popular among general users through future wallet integration and UX improvements.

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📝Summary｜What are Confidential balances?

Confidential balances" is a new feature that encrypts token balances and transfer amounts on Solana to ensure confidentiality on the public blockchain.It is part of Solana's new token standard (Token-2022 extension), which leverages zero-knowledge proofs and quasi-isomorphic cryptography to provide a mechanism to guarantee the validity of transactions while hiding balances and transaction amounts.

By the way Solana Token 2022 is a new token program designed to have more features andThe Solana 2022 token is a new token program designed to be more versatile and flexible than the existing Solana standard tokens (SPL tokens).Developed to allow for customization and extensibility of tokens, which was difficult to achieve with traditional SPL tokens, Token-2022 allows for extensions to be built into the token.

Back to the story.

So, one part of this Token 2022, and a new feature that allows anonymity logic to be built into tokens, is "Confidential balances".

The announcement was made on Solana's official X on April 9, 2025 Japan time, and was accompanied by the announcement "Confidential Balances: Empowering Confidentialityin the Solana Ecosystem", so we will basically explain based on the contents of that blog.

https://www.helius.dev/blog/confidential-balances

◼️ Background

In Solana's enhanced token program, Token-2022, an enhancement called Confidential Transfers was initially considered and implemented.

This was intended to increase user privacy by encrypting the token transfer amount so that it would not be visible to third parties.Now, however, this feature has evolved into a more comprehensive functionality and has been extended under the collective name "Confidential Balances".

Confidential Balances go beyond mere transfer value concealment, providing asset holders and token issuers with multiple cryptography-based extensions that add a new layer of confidentiality without compromising regulatory compliance.

◼️Confidential Balances include features