FAQ

ZERO held in a wallet in the ordinary way. ZERO is a plain ERC-20 launched on Pons, so this is what you get when you buy it on another app, an aggregator or the Pons site, receive an ordinary transfer, unshield, or when a sale's swap fails. Anyone can see it, and it earns nothing. It works like any token: you can send it, sell it, or shield it into a note. See Shield public ZERO.

No. Privacy is a choice. ZERO becomes private only when it is in a note: when you buy in the zerotrace app, which buys and shields in one transaction, or when you shield public ZERO yourself. Registering your privacy key does not change how ordinary transfers reach your address: they stay public until you shield them.

ZERO was launched on the Pons launchpad. It first trades on its own Pons bonding curve against ETH. Once the curve has collected 4.2 ETH, Pons graduates ZERO into a Uniswap v4 pool (native ETH / ZERO, with Pons' own hook and locked liquidity), where it trades from then on. The zerotrace router follows ZERO to whichever venue is live, and the fees are the same on both. See ZERO on Pons and The pool.

Your privacy keys are derived from the signature, so your wallet must produce the same signature every time. The app asks twice and compares. If they differ, the keys could not be recovered later, so the app refuses the wallet before registering anything. After registration, one signature is enough: the app checks it against the registered key. See Supported wallets.

Yes. Your notes are on the chain, encrypted. Open the app on the new device with the same wallet (the same key or seed phrase), connect and sign the activation message. You get the same keys, and the app finds your notes again. There is nothing to back up.

Your notes are tied to your wallet's key twice: the keys that find them come from its signature, and every spend needs its signature. If you can restore the wallet from its seed phrase, you get everything back. If the key is lost for good, nobody can recover the notes, including the zerotrace team. Keep your seed phrase safe.

A private note must be bound to the recipient's owner key and encrypted to their viewing key, and both come from the on-chain registry. Without them, nobody could find or spend the note. Ask the recipient to turn on privacy first. Otherwise the send form offers Send as public ZERO: an unshield to their address, which keeps your address hidden but shows the recipient and the amount (details).

For private sends, sales and unshields, an ERC-4337 bundler submits the transaction, the vault's deposit pays the gas, and you pay a network fee in ZERO from the notes you spend. Your address pays nothing and signs no transaction. Registration, purchases, approvals and shields are normal transactions that your wallet pays in ETH. See Fees.

The first time, the app loads the prover and its setup data, which it serves itself so no third party sees you download them. Then every private transaction builds a zero-knowledge proof in your browser, which takes a few seconds on a desktop, and waits for a bundler to include it. Later transactions in the same session skip the loading.

No. The zerotrace contracts are immutable and have no admin keys: nobody, the team included, can freeze, move or seize your notes. ZERO itself is a Pons token with no owner and no transfer restrictions. Two outside parties matter. Robinhood Chain's sequencer decides which transactions enter blocks and filters those tied to sanctioned addresses. Pons can redirect ZERO's creator fees, which would stop the holder yield but never touch the notes. See Trust model.

ZERO's trades on the Pons curve and, after graduation, on its Uniswap v4 pool are public, so any tool that follows them on Robinhood Chain can show price and volume. Holder lists show public ZERO only: all shielded ZERO appears as one balance, held by the zerotrace vault.

Yes, if the exchange lists ZERO: it is an ordinary ERC-20. Send public ZERO from your wallet, or unshield from your notes straight to the deposit address. Either way the amount and the addresses are public, and the tokens do not earn from harvests. To leave zerotrace without an exchange, sell for ETH.

Your notes hold shares of the vault. Every ZERO trade on Pons sends 0.7% of the trade, in ETH, to the zerotrace harvester. Each harvest() buys ZERO with it and adds it to the vault without adding shares, so each share is worth more. The app shows the gain under Earned from fees. It depends on trading volume and on someone calling harvest(): with no trades, there is no gain. See The vault.

The Pons owner can redirect ZERO's creator fee recipient away from the harvester. The change is public and takes effect only after a 3-day timelock. From then on the holder yield would stop. It cannot touch the vault, the notes or anyone's ability to send, sell or unshield. See Fees.

One private transaction spends at most two notes, and the app uses your two largest. If the amount plus the network fee is more than those two hold, the app stops with this message. Send, sell or unshield a smaller amount.