Raycash Opens Private Beta for Confidential USDC Payments on Ethereum

Raycash, a spin-off of cryptography firm Zama, has opened a private Ethereum beta for confidential USDC payments and idle-balance yield, with more than 75,000 people signed up to its waitlist, the company said. Access is rolling out in stages ahead of a wider public release.

The app's core mechanic is a wrap, not a new issuance. Users wrap existing USDC 1:1 into ERC-7984 confidential tokens, so balances and payment amounts stay encrypted on a public chain while settlement remains onchain. Unwrapping is permissionless, according to the project, and the underlying dollars can exit without reliance on a new issuer.

"People shouldn't have to choose between the benefits of stablecoins and keeping their financial information confidential," Raycash CEO and co-founder Valerio Leo said. "We don't ask anyone to trust a new stablecoin: we take the dollars people already use and make them private, and they can move back out whenever they want."

How the confidential payments stack works

Raycash lists itself in Zama's ecosystem as an onchain payments product built around private digital dollars. The technical backbone is ERC-7984, the confidential fungible token standard drafted for Ethereum. It keeps an account-based model but replaces public integers with encrypted handles: transfer amounts and balances become confidential pointers, with access control for authorized viewers. Zama says the interface mirrors ERC-20.

Every ordinary ERC-20 transfer publishes balance, amount, and counterparty to anyone with a block explorer. Raycash's confidential USDC, or cUSDC, encrypts amounts and balances by default while leaving the dollar claim itself untouched — USDC's issuer relationship and reserves stay upstream of the wrap.

Operationally, the app offers several rails:

• Deposits by bank transfer, card, or stablecoin; withdrawals back to bank accounts
• Payment links for send, request, and receive flows
• Background network-fee handling, so users don't need to hold ETH for gas
• Self-custodial wallets, per the company
• Optional view access for named parties such as an accountant or auditor

The confidential tokens carry no freeze or seize functions at the token layer, Raycash says — though that's a distinct risk class from exchange-level freezes after flagged deposits, which remain a real hazard for stablecoin users.

Where Morpho yield fits

Idle balances can earn yield through Morpho lending vaults from inside the app. That path was paved by Zama itself: in June 2026, Zama launched a Morpho vault curated by Steakhouse Financial for confidential USDC deposits, and later reported the vault grew from zero to more than $40 million in shielded TVL within seven weeks. On September 15, the program expanded to 16 confidential Morpho vaults across five curators and five asset classes, alongside confidential swaps.

A private spending card branded Raycard is in development.

What the beta doesn't yet prove

Several open questions sit alongside the launch. Public materials don't disclose how many waitlist users are live in the beta, how much USDC has been wrapped, or when Raycard ships. Broader stablecoin support is promised after USDC without a dated schedule. The trust picture also migrates rather than disappears: users still rely on the app's fee handling, the wrap-and-unwrap path, the Morpho yield routing, and the token-layer no-freeze claim.

Regulatory acceptance is the bigger unknown. A private beta doesn't establish that accountants, banks, or regulators will accept selective disclosure as sufficient transparency. Those tests come after the invite list — and they'll shape whether encrypted-amount dollar payments move from waitlist curiosity to operational payroll and peer-transfer infrastructure.