Aztec Labs relaunched zk.money on September 29, 2026, while the Ethereum Foundation and the Open Anonymity Project activated zkAPI on Ethereum mainnet on October 1. The separate self-custodial systems use zero-knowledge proofs for different privacy-focused payment applications: zk.money supports private USDC, USDT and DAI transfers on Aztec Network, while zkAPI lets users deposit ETH or USDC into an Ethereum vault and pay for AI and other metered API services without exposing billing identities. zkAPI creates cryptographic notes and authorizes spending locally, allowing proofs to establish available credit without identifying the deposit used. Nullifiers prevent double spending, while local interfaces compatible with OpenAI and Ollama allow existing applications to connect through localhost. The experimental protocol does not conceal prompts or network metadata, meaning IP addresses, timing and information in requests may still enable users to be linked across sessions. Vitalik Buterin and Davide Crapis outlined the approach in a February proposal. The Ethereum Foundation is also pursuing network scaling, user-experience improvements and Layer-1 security upgrades, including a 2026 gas-limit target above 100 million and the planned Glamsterdam upgrade.