NEW YORK, May 7, 2019 -- RealBlocks, a blockchain-powered technology platform that democratizes access to alternative investments, today announced a partnership with AZTEC, a zero-knowledge privacy protocol, to enable private, permissioned, and compliant private offerings on the Ethereum blockchain.

Through this partnership, RealBlocks enables anonymous transactions between users, adding a layer of privacy to the enhanced liquidity benefits associated with its peer-to-peer bulletin board for trading. Details surrounding trades will only be visible to the parties involved, but the actual trades are publicly verifiable. RealBlocks will initially offer investors access to non-traded REITs, but plans to expand to other alternative investments in the future.

"Public blockchains have the power to create and transform markets, but have been criticized over their lack of privacy. Implementing AZTEC's technology onto our platform solves this issue," said Matt Grierson, Head of Product at RealBlocks. "Additionally, this lays the groundwork for globally accessible dark pools. This next evolutionary stage of the private markets will limit front-running and trade masking, making the value of the underlying trades more honest."

Those in the institutional trading world can expect several improved solutions to traditional dark pools. The RealBlocks platform is designed to ensure that predatory trading practices are minimized, as the details surrounding trading intents in the system are not known to those outside of the participating parties. Funds on either side are also confirmed trustlessly before an intent is posted, reducing counterparty risk while also not exposing anything to the general network.

“We’re building AZTEC to help drive the largest financial ecosystems onto public blockchains, by providing the plug and play zero-knowledge toolkit needed to allow issuers and investors to transact in full privacy,” said Tom Pocock, CEO and co-founder of AZTEC Protocol. “We're very excited to be welcoming RealBlocks to the AZTEC network.”

For a deeper look at how RealBlocks will utilize AZTEC Protocol, and the lasting effects it can have on the financial services industry, read our Medium post here.

About RealBlocks
RealBlocks is a blockchain-powered technology platform that democratizes access to alternative investments through a proprietary 30-second web-based subscription process. Fund sponsors are able to 1) sell shares to both domestic and international investors, 2) accept digital and fiat currency, and 3) enable peer-to-peer trading via a bulletin board. For more information, please visit www.realblocks.com or follow us on Twitter @RealBlocks.

About AZTEC Protocol
AZTEC Protocol is an efficient zero-knowledge privacy protocol. The AZTEC protocol uses cutting-edge zero-knowledge proofs to enable private transactions powering real world financial applications on Ethereum mainnet.
https://www.aztecprotocol.com/

Contact
Matt Jago
RealBlocks
matt.jago@realblocks.com