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HINKAL Universal Privacy for stablecoins
HINKAL
Company Overview.
Description.
Hinkal is a universal privacy protocol for stablecoins, founded in 2022 and headquartered in Stanford, California. The protocol provides confidential transaction infrastructure across Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tron, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Tempo — enabling institutions, payment platforms, applications, and individuals to transact on-chain without exposing balances, counterparties, or treasury activity. Hinkal achieves privacy through a combination of UTXO-based shielded commitments, zero-knowledge proofs, and secure enclave execution, while maintaining compliance through Chainalysis KYT integration, selective disclosure viewing keys, and custom pool deployments for regulated environments. The protocol has processed over $500 million in private on-chain volume and undergone 6 independent security audits.
Key Infrastructure.
Deposits create cryptographic commitments in a shared shielded pool that can be claimed via four transaction paths — Public→Private, Private→Private, Private→Public, and Public→Public — enabling institutions to choose the exact level of confidentiality required for each settlement.
All settlement remains publicly verifiable on-chain, with only counterparty linkage removed from public observation.
API requests are signed by the caller's EVM wallet via EIP-712 or personal_sign, ensuring user-level authorization without passwords or custodial key handling.
The API supports deposits, withdrawals, transfers, swaps, private sends, balance reads, fee checks, and recipient information through language-agnostic REST endpoints compatible with Python, Go, Java, .NET, Rust, and Node.js backends.
Wallets can show both public and confidential balances in one interface, users can toggle between public and private transaction modes, and the SDK supports wallet-connected flows using the wallets users already own.
The SDK provides frontend-level control over wallet connection, transaction steps, balance display states, and user-facing transaction flows, giving developers full autonomy over the privacy experience without building cryptography from scratch.
Private keys are generated, stored, and used exclusively inside the secure enclave — raw key material is never exposed to the caller's backend.
The organization model supports administrators who manage user roles, wallet assignments, and policy rules, with all requests cryptographically authenticated using Ed25519-based X-Stamp signing with unique nonces to prevent replay attacks.
Users can selectively disclose full or partial transaction history to auditors, regulators, exchanges, or internal compliance teams through viewing key mechanisms.
For heavily regulated environments, the protocol supports custom pool deployments with configurable compliance logic including optional master-key visibility while maintaining privacy-by-default for all other protocol participants.
Deposits on one chain can be privately claimed on another, with the bridge integrated into the same shielded pool architecture that maintains sender-recipient unlinkability across chain boundaries.
External chain bridging is also supported through a LI.FI integration announced in June 2026, extending private settlement to networks beyond Hinkal's native supported chains.
Additional Features.
General Questions.
Hinkal provides a multi-chain privacy protocol that enables stablecoin transactions — payments, settlements, payroll, and treasury operations — to execute on public blockchains without exposing sender identity, recipient address, or transaction amounts to public observers. The protocol uses UTXO-based shielded commitments, zero-knowledge proofs, and secure enclave execution to break on-chain linkage while maintaining public verifiability and compliance through Chainalysis KYT screening and selective disclosure viewing keys. Hinkal offers three integration tiers: a REST API for backend-driven flows, an SDK for embedding privacy UX into frontends, and Wallet-as-a-Service for managed wallet infrastructure across EVM, Solana, and Tron.
Hinkal's clients span the fintech and crypto infrastructure stack: Polygon (L2 blockchain integrating privacy into their wallet), MPCVault (institutional MPC custody), Rubic Exchange (cross-chain DEX), Aquanow (institutional liquidity), Borderless (stablecoin orchestration), Peso (LATAM payments), Khalani (intent execution layer), Psalion (institutional finance), Tempo (blockchain network), LI.FI (cross-chain bridging), and Aave (via Hush, DeFi lending). The protocol also targets card issuers seeking confidential settlement rails.
Hinkal operates as software infrastructure — the protocol is non-custodial by design and does not claim to hold financial licenses. Compliance is handled at the protocol level through Chainalysis KYT screening that blocks sanctioned wallets at deposit, viewing keys for selective audit disclosure, and custom pool deployments with configurable compliance logic for regulated environments. The company's legal entity and registration jurisdiction have not been publicly disclosed.
Hinkal supports Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tron, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Arc, and Tempo. The protocol works with USDT, USDC, DAI, and all major stablecoins across supported chains. Native both-way bridging enables confidential cross-chain movement between EVM, Solana, and Tron without exiting the privacy layer, with external chain bridging available through LI.FI integration.
