Cryptocurrency
Redefining Privacy: Howard Wu on Aleo, Zero-Knowledge, and the Future of Blockchain Confidentiality
In this interview, Howard Wu, Founder of Aleo and CEO of Provable (an Aleo Labs company that focuses on developing products for compliant and confidential payments, as well as creating tools for developers to deploy and manage apps on the Aleo blockchain) shares how they are rethinking privacy in the blockchain era through the use of zero-knowledge proofs.
With transparency long considered a massive cornerstone in our industry, Wu argues that true innovation lies in programmable privacy – a concept that allows users and developers to decide what data is shared and with whom.
Join us in an interesting and thought-provoking conversation centered around the fundamental beliefs of the cryptocurrency industry.
Aleo is built around the concept of privacy-preserving applications using zero-knowledge proofs. In your view, how does Aleo fundamentally redefine what privacy means in the blockchain space?
Transparency is one of the founding principles of blockchain transactions, creating a new community based on public accountability. However, as blockchain evolves, the community has increasingly recognized that absolute transparency can be problematic. Businesses need confidential transactions, individuals don’t want to expose all of their financial data publicly, and applications that manage personal data need to be able to decide what information should be public and what should be private.
Aleo is the first ZK blockchain designed with programmable privacy as a core principle, rather than an afterthought, opening up entirely new use cases that allow people to protect their application state and personal data from misuse.
Aleo is known for its vertically integrated stack—from the Leo programming language to snarkOS and snarkVM. Why was vertical integration a strategic choice, and how does it shape the developer experience on Aleo?
As developers ourselves, we wanted to give Aleo devs the simplest developer experience possible. From Leo, our Rust-based DSL, to snarkOS and snarkVM, developers have everything they need to build in one place. By abstracting away the low-level cryptography, developers can focus on the logic of their application and not the extensive cryptography knowledge that used to be needed to build with zero-knowledge.
With the Aleo mainnet now live, what kinds of real-world use cases are you most excited about, and what signals are you seeing that point to ecosystem traction?
Every time we share personal information with each other or with an organization is an opportunity for zero-knowledge to make that process safer and more secure. With that being said, zero-knowledge has immense potential to change the way we send payments online. The transparency offered by the blockchain isn’t conducive to making payments – why would we want the details of our transactions, including amount, sender and receiver, public? And more importantly, our entire wallet history is available anytime we send and receive money too.
This is blocking enterprise adoption of cryptocurrency in different finance applications, including payroll and cross-border payments. On Aleo, transactions can be sent privately and compliantly, opening up these new use cases for businesses around the globe.
Open-source is a central theme in Web3. How does Aleo balance building sophisticated cryptographic tools while keeping the ecosystem open and accessible to developers?
All of our software to run and operate the Aleo Network is fully open-sourced. In addition, our programming language, Leo, is also fully open-sourced. We want Aleo to be a decentralized and permissionless ecosystem.
We have prioritized publishing our technical roadmap to be open and visible to all community members. This level of transparency ensures projects building on Aleo know exactly what the core developers are focused on at any given moment, and when these are expected to land on the network as well.
All of our core protocol upgrades are made through collective decisions with our community. We use ARCs (Aleo Request for Comment) as our governance process, and have ARCs posted on vote.aleo.org to allow for community members to vote on the proposal. Once a quorum and minimum amount of “approve” votes is achieved, this is then moved forward onto the release pipeline.
Zero-knowledge proofs are powerful but often resource-intensive. How has Aleo approached the challenges of scalability and efficiency without compromising on privacy?
We designed Aleo to use an incredibly efficient zero-knowledge proof system, all without compromising on user or data privacy. Namely, the type of zero-knowledge proofs we use verify in mere milliseconds and are under 1KB in size. This differs in design from many other zero-knowledge proof systems out there and we’ve been able to use these properties of our solution to scale the throughput of consensus on the Aleo Network by supporting batch executions of programs and parallel verifications of transactions on the network.
As new proof systems evolve, we’ve also designed Aleo to be upgradable, so that we can incorporate newer technologies into the blockchain and allow for the network to scale even further.
Looking ahead, how do you envision the regulatory landscape evolving for privacy-preserving blockchains, and what role do you see Aleo playing in shaping that future?
I believe we’ll reach a balanced state that recognizes the need for oversight but also the need for privacy. We’re already seeing privacy as a fundamental right gaining ground culturally, and it’s a matter of time before regulatory standards evolve to meet it.
By building compliance tools directly into our platform, we’re positioning Aleo to be ahead of the curve addressing any potential future regulations while maintaining With all state on Aleo private-by-default, payments made on Aleo utilize an account view key to decrypt and read transactions. Developers are able to control which parties see what transaction data, allowing for more granular compliance control.
Disclaimer: The content shared in this interview is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or endorsement of any project, protocol, or asset. The cryptocurrency space involves risk and volatility. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with qualified professionals before making any financial decisions. This interview was conducted in cooperation with Aleo, who generously shared their time and insights. The content has been reviewed and approved for publication in mutual understanding. Minor edits have been made for clarity and readability, while preserving the substance and tone of the original conversation.
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Bitcoin (BTC) is down almost 7% from its all-time high (ATH), and on-chain signals are flashing a buying opportunity.
According to Darkfost, a pseudonymous analyst at the market intelligence platform CryptoQuant, this buy signal is coming from the Bitcoin Hash Ribbons indicator. This metric tracks the Bitcoin hashrate and is used to identify potential entry points during a market correction.
Is it Time to Buy the Dip?
The Hash Ribbon monitors Bitcoin mining activity and tells when miners are under stress or capitulating by comparing the 30-day and 60-day moving averages of the hashrate. Miner capitulation refers to a period when miners shut down their hardware and sell off their coin reserves to remain afloat because BTC has fallen below a certain price.
On most occasions, the capitulation coincides with the hashrate recovery. The hashrate metric tells how much computational power is required to solve complex math problems and approve transactions on the Bitcoin network. During this period of recovery, mining becomes more difficult.
Market experts say buying BTC during miner capitulation yields significant returns, and the best buy signals are seen during hashrate recoveries. Recently, Bitcoin’s hashrate has been reaching new highs, with the latest being 1.016 billion TH/S. The network’s mining difficulty also surged past 126 trillion during the last adjustment on May 30.
“We recently got a new buy signal from the Hash Ribbons indicator. This metric helps us assess the level of stress in the Bitcoin mining ecosystem. It’s not a big surprise considering that the hashrate has recently reached new all-time highs,” Darkfost stated.
Miners Are Selling Their BTC
Furthermore, the CryptoQuant analyst noted that the Hash Ribbon’s flashing a buy signal is a short-term negative. This is because miners selling their BTC to stay operational create long-term profitable opportunities.
Darkfost explained that the indicator has always been accurate except once, during the 2021 China mining ban event. Hence, the possibility of the metric being correct this time is high.
“Bottom line, this signal is telling you that buying the dip around here is a smart move,” he added.
The analysis comes as a solo BTC miner defied hashrate odds and beat mining giants to validate a block on the Bitcoin network, earning a reward worth over $330,000. Mining successes like this are extremely rare due to the high computational power required to approve transactions.
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[PRESS RELEASE – Dubai, UAE, June 5th, 2025]
The next-generation web3 investor and market maker DWF Labs has announced that the USD1 stablecoin has gone live on DWF Liquid Markets. Its introduction means that more than 1,000 counterparties can access USD1 via DWF’s institutional-grade trading solution.
Developed by World Liberty Financial, USD1 operates as a fiat-backed stablecoin for institutional and retail traders. Custodied by BitGo, USD1 is fully backed by short-term US government treasuries, US dollar deposits, and other cash equivalents.
USD1 will form a cornerstone of DWF Liquid Markets which supports instant OTC trades using a request for quote (RFQ) model. This enables traders to tap into competitive price quotes and execute OTC trades privately with no market impact. Characterized by deep liquidity and 24/7 access, DWF Liquid Markets is optimized for facilitating large trades of leading crypto assets.
Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner at DWF Labs, said: “Stablecoin diversity is integral to supporting a robust trading ecosystem that isn’t reliant on any single dollar-based asset. The launch of USD1 on DWF Liquid Markers supports this goal, giving professional traders access to a versatile and transparent stablecoin that can serve as a base pair for all their trading activity.”
The introduction of USD1 on DWF Liquid Markets will significantly expand access to the institutional-friendly stablecoin which is fully backed by a reserve portfolio audited regularly by a leading accounting firm.
Initially launched on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, USD1 will eventually expand to other protocols in the future. Each token is designed to maintain a value of $1 USD and is fully backed by a reserve portfolio audited regularly by a third-party accounting firm.
About DWF Labs
DWF Labs is the new generation Web3 investor and market maker, one of the world’s largest high-frequency cryptocurrency trading entities, which trades spot and derivatives markets on over 60 top exchanges.
Learn more: https://www.dwf-labs.com/
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Bitcoin climbed to a fresh peak in May, but upward momentum slowed as long-term holders began locking in profits. Its price has remained relatively stable this week, fluctuating within a narrow range of $103,000 to $106,000.
At the time of writing, the crypto asset trades below $105,000, which represents a minor decline over the past day. Despite the subdued price action, Bitcoin is seeing an increased user participation.
Strong BTC Network Growth
Bitcoin’s on-chain activity has spiked sharply this week, according to the latest analysis from Santiment. On May 29, the network registered 556,830 newly created wallets – the highest daily total since December 2, 2023, representing a significant surge in user growth.
Just days later, on June 2, Bitcoin saw its most active circulation day since December 8, 2024, with 241,360 BTC moved. These activity spikes coincide with Bitcoin’s price trading just below $105,000.
Santiment noted that rising network growth and token circulation are typically bullish indicators, pointing to a renewed interest and broader utility at a time when the crypto market continues to consolidate.
The latest activity comes as Bitcoin sees renewed bullish accumulation, with new whales, wallets holding 1,000+ BTC with coins aged under six months, doubling their holdings to 1.1 million BTC since March. This 600K BTC surge, which is around $63 billion, now represents 5.6% of the total supply, indicating intensified fresh capital inflows.
Unlike long-held coins, these recent buys suggest increased investor conviction. Combined with a 30% drop in exchange balances and increasing institutional adoption, market experts view this behavior as a setup for a supply squeeze.
While increased network activity and accumulation trends paint a strong demand-side picture, miner-focused metrics are now offering additional insights into the current market setup.
Bitcoin Hash Ribbons Flash Rare Buy Signal
Bitcoin’s Hash Ribbons indicator has issued a new buy signal, highlighting stress within the mining sector. The tool monitors the 30-day and 60-day hashrate moving averages to detect periods when mining becomes less profitable.
Such stress often forces miners to sell their BTC, adding short-term selling pressure. However, this has historically reflected attractive buying opportunities for long-term investors. Given Bitcoin’s hash rate has recently hit all-time highs, the emergence of this signal suggests the current market dip may be worth buying.
It’s important to note that, aside from 2021’s mining ban in China, this indicator has proven consistently reliable in identifying solid entry points.
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