Shield Swap
A concentrated-liquidity exchange on Aleo that keeps traders' wallet addresses off the public record, while amounts, routes and prices stay public and every swap creates an encrypted compliance record.
AlphaPrivate DEX / lending
Deployed on Aleo mainnet on 29 July 2026 and in early access since 17 August 2026, which Provable describes as a beta period ahead of a public launch it anticipates in Q4 2026; trading was not paused on 16 October 2026.
- TVL
- $2.0MDefiLlama, 18 Oct 2026
- Launched
- 17 Aug 2026
- Token
- None
- Chains
- Aleo
How it works
Shield Swap is an exchange for trading tokens on Aleo, a blockchain that uses zero-knowledge proofs so that balances and transfers can stay encrypted. It is a concentrated-liquidity market maker, the design popularised by Uniswap v3: liquidity providers deposit pairs of tokens into pools over a price range they choose, and traders swap against those pools at prices set by a formula. Users bring funds in through bridges (USDC from Ethereum arrives as USDCx, and ETH, wBTC and SOL arrive through Hyperlane Nexus) or buy assets with fiat inside Shield Wallet, the only wallet the web app supports. Shield Swap currently pays the Aleo network fee for each swap and claim.
What Shield Swap hides is the link between a trade and the account behind it. Tokens are held in encrypted Aleo records that only their owner can read. When a user swaps, the public transaction shows a one-time pseudonymous address, derived from the user's account and a secret value, instead of the wallet address, and the proceeds are collected in a second transaction, called a claim, which returns new encrypted records to the user. Liquidity positions work differently: each has a public position number, but ownership is held in an encrypted record, so the public data does not show whose position it is.
Most of the trade itself stays public. Anyone can see the tokens, the exact amounts, the route through the pools, the price movement and the timing of each swap and claim, as well as each position's price range, size and amounts owed. Shield Swap's documentation notes that a distinctive amount, an unusual route or a closely timed claim may be recognisable even though the wallet address is hidden, and that every action on a liquidity position can be linked through its public number.
Shield Swap is designed for compliance rather than anonymity. Every swap, and every new or rebalanced liquidity position, creates an encrypted compliance record naming the Aleo account that signed it, and these records can be read by whoever holds a single investigator key written into the program; Provable has not published who holds that key or the rules for its use. The operator can also pause trading, freeze individual liquidity positions and maintain a restriction list that stops listed addresses from opening positions, collecting from them or claiming swap proceeds; no address had been added to that list by 16 October 2026.
TVL over time
- $2.0M TVL now
- +13.7% in 30 days
- $2.0M highest daily TVL, 25 Sep 2026
Daily total value locked (TVL) from DefiLlama since 22 Aug 2026, with the current value refreshed every hour. The latest value is from 18 Oct 2026, 04:12 UTC. Confidential DEX on Aleo, in early access since 17 Aug 2026, which Provable describes as a beta period ahead of a public launch it expects in Q4 2026. The series is in protocol-shield-swap.json, listed on the Data page.
What it hides and what it does not
What it hides
- The wallet behind a trade: the public transaction shows a one-time pseudonymous address instead of the wallet address.
- Token balances, held in encrypted Aleo records that only their owner can read.
- Who owns a liquidity position: ownership is held in an encrypted record.
What it does not hide
- The tokens, the exact amounts, the route through the pools, the price movement and the timing of each swap and claim.
- Each liquidity position's public number, price range, size and amounts owed; every action on a position can be linked through its number.
- The Aleo account behind every swap and every new or rebalanced position, to whoever holds the single investigator key, through an encrypted compliance record.
Drawn from how it works, above; the sources are listed at the end of the page. Where privacy still leaks explains the patterns, such as timing and amounts, that can give users of any design away.
Audits
None found when this profile was checked on 16 Oct 2026.
Incidents
None found when this profile was checked on 16 Oct 2026.
Milestones
Eight milestones, oldest first.
-
Provable launched Shield Wallet, the Aleo wallet that the Shield Swap web app later required for trading.
Source: Introducing Shield
-
The exchange program, shield_swap.aleo, was first deployed on Aleo testnet.
Sources: shield_swap.aleo edition 0 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo testnet) ; Aleo testnet block 18180640
-
The first version of shield_swap.aleo was deployed on Aleo mainnet in block 20635179.
Sources: shield_swap.aleo edition 0 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet) ; Aleo mainnet block 20635179
-
The first four mainnet pools were created, pairing USDCx with ETH, wBTC, SOL and ALEO.
Source: Shield Swap API: explore pools
-
Provable opened early access to Shield Swap for institutions, businesses and government entities, with a public launch anticipated for Q4 2026.
Source: Provable Opens Early Access to Shield Swap, a Confidential Trading Venue Built for Compliance
-
The core program was upgraded and a rebalance router was deployed, letting liquidity providers move a position to a new price range in one transaction.
Sources: shield_swap.aleo edition 2 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet) ; Aleo mainnet block 21663459 ; shield_swap_rebalance_router.aleo deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet) ; Aleo mainnet block 21663804 ; Shield Swap documentation, full text
-
The core program was upgraded to its fourth version (edition 3), adding time-weighted price oracle records for its pools and pool metadata, after earlier upgrades on 12 August and 4 September 2026.
Sources: shield_swap.aleo edition 3 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet) ; shield_swap.aleo edition 3 deployment transaction (Aleo mainnet) ; Aleo mainnet block 22245833 ; shield_swap.aleo edition 1 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet) ; Aleo mainnet block 21031954 ; shield_swap.aleo latest edition (Aleo mainnet)
-
A fifth pool, pairing ETH with ALEO and the first not paired with USDCx, was created; it held no liquidity on 16 October 2026.
Source: Shield Swap API: explore pools
Funding
One source of funding. Amounts are in US dollars; a dash means the sources give no US dollar figure.
| Date | Round | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not dated | Investors in Provable listed on its website; rounds, dates and amounts are not stated there Source: Provable home page |
– | a16z crypto, SoftBank, Kora, Coinbase Ventures, Ethereal, Galaxy, Placeholder, Samsung Next, Variant, Tiger |
Risks
Shield Swap is new and small: DefiLlama put its total value locked at about USD 1.9 million on 16 October 2026, held in four pools that pair USDCx with ETH, wBTC, SOL and ALEO (a fifth pool, pairing ETH with ALEO, was created on 14 October and held no liquidity two days later), and Provable notes that its anonymity set strengthens as participation grows, so early trades have fewer others to blend in with. Its risk page says no published independent audit report is linked from the site. Because amounts, routes and timing are public, trades can be correlated by size and timing, and actions on a liquidity position are linked through its public number. Whoever holds the investigator key can link every swap and new position to an Aleo account; the program has no way to rotate that key short of an upgrade, and its custodian and access rules are unpublished. Routine admin actions such as pausing trading, freezing positions and setting fees need only the admin address, without the multisig check that applies to upgrades, and that address is the account that signed the program deployments, an ordinary account rather than a multisig program, so on chain one key can perform them; Provable has not published how that key is held. The operator's restriction list can stop a listed address from claiming swap proceeds, and the site says Shield Swap is limited to eligible participants and is not available in restricted jurisdictions. The protocol source code is private, although the compiled programs can be read on chain and the TypeScript SDK is published under the MIT licence; each claim depends on a secret that the user must keep and the contract cannot recover; and by default the wallet relies on remote proving and fee-payment services. Bridged assets such as USDCx and tokens arriving through Hyperlane add their own issuer and bridge risks.
Sources
The documents this profile rests on. Each audit, incident, milestone and funding round above also links its own sources.
- Shield Swap home page
- Shield Swap llms.txt
- Provable Opens Early Access to Shield Swap, a Confidential Trading Venue Built for Compliance
- Shield Swap risk disclosures
- Shield Swap privacy policy
- Shield Swap terms of use
- Shield Swap docs: Start with Shield Swap
- Shield Swap docs: Confidentiality model
- Shield Swap docs: Public data
- Shield Swap docs: Compliance controls
- Shield Swap docs: Administrative control risks
- Shield Swap docs: Trust and key boundaries
- Shield Swap docs: Confidential data limitations
- Shield Swap docs: External references
- Shield Swap docs: Glossary
- Shield Swap documentation, full text
- Provable opens early access to Shield Swap on Aleo
- Introducing Shield
- Provable home page
- Veil: a TypeScript interface for Aleo, including the Shield Swap SDK
- shield_swap.aleo edition 0 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo testnet)
- Aleo testnet block 18180640
- shield_swap.aleo edition 0 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap.aleo edition 0 deployment transaction, with owner address and signature (Aleo mainnet)
- Aleo mainnet block 20635179
- shield_swap.aleo edition 1 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet)
- Aleo mainnet block 21031954
- shield_swap.aleo edition 2 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet)
- Aleo mainnet block 21663459
- shield_swap_rebalance_router.aleo deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet)
- Aleo mainnet block 21663804
- shield_swap.aleo edition 3 deployment transaction lookup (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap.aleo edition 3 deployment transaction (Aleo mainnet)
- Aleo mainnet block 22245833
- shield_swap.aleo latest edition (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap.aleo deployed program source (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap.aleo admin mapping (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap.aleo global_paused mapping (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap.aleo pool_creation_is_open mapping (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap_freezelist.aleo deployed program source (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap_freezelist.aleo freeze_list_last_index mapping (Aleo mainnet)
- shield_swap_freezelist.aleo root_updated_height mapping (Aleo mainnet)
- Shield Swap API: explore pools
- Shield Swap protocol data
