The zero-knowledge privacy protocol runs inside the wallets people already use. It is live on Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain and Robinhood Chain, with Solana and private perpetuals coming next.

London, UK

 Nullmask, a zero-knowledge privacy protocol for private transfers and swaps, has processed more than $50 million in private volume since 1 October. The protocol was founded by Tomas Krnak, whose team of Zcash developers built shielded transaction support into Trezor hardware wallets on a Zcash Foundation grant. Nullmask averages about $3 million a day, and its busiest day so far saw roughly $4.5 million move through the pool in 24 hours.

The growth comes as privacy has become the largest narrative in web3. It is what is bringing institutions and large funds on-chain, because they need to move capital without exposing positions, counterparties or strategy to the public. Nullmask gives them that confidentiality while keeping deposits screened and activity auditable for the people who need to see it.

Nullmask has distributed about $1.5 million in ZEC rewards and $1.5 million to $MASK holders, and has burned 2.15% of the $MASK supply. All figures are on-chain and can be verified on Dune and DefiLlama.

The team is now launching Nullmask Points Season One, which goes live on 19 October and runs for 90 days. Points reward one thing: moving money privately. Every withdrawal from the pool earns. Through the Early Adopters Program, activity from before Season One is credited retroactively.

Privacy without a new wallet

On a public blockchain, every payment, balance and counterparty is permanent and searchable by anyone with your address. Scrutiny is also increasing: since January, exchanges in 75 countries have been collecting transaction data that tax authorities will begin sharing in 2027.

Earlier privacy tools asked users to give something up. That could mean a new wallet, a new seed phrase, hours of setup, or handing funds to a third party mid-transfer. As a result, privacy stayed a niche for technical power users.

Nullmask takes a different approach. Users add it to MetaMask, Rabby, Ledger, Trezor or any wallet that supports a custom network, and connect once. From then on, tokens, native ETH and NFTs can be shielded in a single click, and private transfers complete in under 30 seconds.

• No new wallet or seed phrase. Privacy keys are derived deterministically from a signature by the user’s existing wallet, so there is nothing extra to back up.
• No custody. Funds never leave the user’s control, and no third party holds them mid-transfer.
• Standard signing. Shielded transactions are authorized with a standard EIP-1559 transaction from the user’s own wallet, including hardware wallets.

This used to be impractical. Proving a normal wallet signature inside a zero-knowledge proof once required enormous files and hours of compute. Advances in proof systems have brought that down to a couple of seconds on a laptop or phone.

Wave Batching: hiding the last link

A privacy pool breaks the direct path between a deposit and a withdrawal, but three clues can still connect them: the address, the amount and the time. Nullmask steers users toward a fresh withdrawal address and standard amounts, such as 500 or 1,000 USDT, so withdrawals blend in with many others.

Time is the last link, because every on-chain withdrawal carries a public timestamp. Nullmask’s Advanced mode addresses this with Wave Batching. Withdrawals are signed and queued, then sent together at a scheduled wave in shuffled order. The timestamp on-chain shows the wave, not the moment the user acted. Users can also split a withdrawal into two to five parts, each with its own amount, address and wave, up to 24 hours ahead.

Fast mode remains available for users who need funds right away. Both modes carry the same 0.5% protocol fee.

Compliance built in

Nullmask is designed to keep illicit funds out of its pool:

• Every deposit waits as pending until it is approved.
• Depositing addresses are screened against the OFAC SDN list, the Chainalysis sanctions oracle, EU and UK sanctions lists, USDT and USDC issuer blacklists, and public scam lists, and are risk-scored by AMLBot.
• Funds linked to sanctions, hacks, darknet markets, scams, ransomware, terrorism financing or child exploitation are refused and refunded automatically.
• Approved addresses remain under continuous AMLBot monitoring.

Users can share their history with an accountant, institution or regulator through viewing keys, without publishing it. Every approved deposit also carries a revocation key pair. If a deposit is flagged after it enters the pool, the secret half is published, and every other user can prove their funds were never linked to it.

Contract source code is verified on Etherscan, and all protocol addresses are published with a signed proof of ownership at nullmask.io/compliance. Verified law enforcement requests sent to [email protected] are acknowledged within 72 hours.

Integrations and partners

• NEAR Intents: private cross-chain bridging, live
• Uniswap: private ETH ⇄ USDT swaps, live
• Aerodrome and PancakeSwap: private swaps on Base and BNB Chain
• Gate Wallet: integrated, with a MetaMask integration in talks
• AMLBot: screening on every deposit
• DefiLlama: listed

Nullmask has also partnered with Beldex, Dash Pay, QUAI and THORChain. It reaches users through social trading apps such as Fomo and through exchange listings including Aster perps.

“[Quote placeholder. Suggested: Privacy shouldn’t require a new wallet or a leap of faith. Nullmask works inside the wallet you already use, it screens every deposit at the door, and it gives users a way to prove their funds are clean. Fifty million dollars in a few weeks shows people want that.]” said Tomas Krnak, founder of Nullmask.

The team

Nullmask was founded by Tomas Krnak, whose team of Zcash-focused developers spent two years bringing private transactions to hardware wallets. On a Zcash Foundation grant, they built shielded support into Trezor firmware, covering key derivation, shielded addresses and on-device signing, and moved the work onto Orchard, Zcash’s newer privacy design. The team’s changes to the transaction format were accepted into Zcash itself.

What’s next

Nullmask is live on Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain and Robinhood Chain. Next on the roadmap are Points Season One, Solana support and private perpetuals.

About Nullmask

Nullmask is a zero-knowledge privacy protocol for private transfers and swaps that works inside users’ existing wallets, with no new wallet, seed phrase or custody. Deposits are screened before entering the shielded pool, and users keep full control of their funds. Learn more at nullmask.io.

Links

• Website: nullmask.io
• X: x.com/NullMaskio
• Analytics: app.nullmask.io/analytics
• DefiLlama: defillama.com/protocol/nullmask

Nothing in this release is financial or legal advice. Use of privacy tools remains subject to the laws of your jurisdiction.

Media Contact Details
Tomas Krnak, Founder, Nullmask
Email: Send Email

Washington, DC

The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy (AMCD) today issued an open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging decisive action following his recent conversation with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. AMCD strongly supports Secretary Rubio’s insistence that explosives seized from Hezbollah must never be returned and that Lebanon’s 1955 Boycott Law must be repealed.

In the letter, AMCD Co-Chairs Tom Harb and John Hajjar emphasize that the 1955 law, originally an economic boycott measure, has been stretched far beyond its original purpose. Lebanese authorities now use it to criminalize nearly any contact between Lebanese and Israelis—including conversations, meetings, shared conferences, and even pilgrimages by Lebanese Christians and Muslims to the holy sites of the Holy Land.

“The law is not only impractical; it has become a tool for politicized prosecutions of those who advocate peace,” the letter states. “One of AMCD’s own co-chairs, Tom Harb, an American citizen born in Lebanon, was summoned to appear before the Lebanese military court, as have so many others. Americans should not face criminal charges abroad for speech that is protected at home.”

AMCD calls on President Aoun to repeal the 1955 Boycott Law without delay and to permit open communication with Israel at every level:

• Military-to-military channels to prevent further loss of innocent life through miscalculation;
• Diplomatic and negotiation channels to advance lasting peace;
• Ordinary citizen contact, including a pilot program allowing Lebanese pilgrims to visit the holy sites in time for Christmas 2026 without fear of prosecution.

To give these demands weight, AMCD urges the Administration to work with Congress on two concrete measures:

1. Condition U.S. assistance — Any U.S. financial or military aid to the Government of Lebanon should be conditioned on repeal of the 1955 Boycott Law and concrete steps to facilitate military, diplomatic, and civilian communication with Israel, including freedom of pilgrimage.

2. Impose targeted sanctions — Absent repeal, the United States should sanction any Lebanese government body, institution, or individual that prosecutes or penalizes people for peaceful contact with Israelis or for visiting the holy sites—particularly when the person is a U.S. citizen.
“American taxpayers should not underwrite a government that criminalizes the pursuit of peace,” the letter concludes. “We respectfully urge you to continue pressing President Aoun on these issues and to support these measures in Congress.”

The open letter has been sent to key lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

The full open letter is available at:
https://americanmideast.com/2026/10/16/open-letter-to-secretary-rubio/

Media Contact Details
Rebecca Bynum
American Mideast Coalition for Democracy
Email: Send Email
Phone: +16157756801
Website: americanmideast.com

Hispanic and Spanish-Language Micro-Drama Projected to Reach $6.2 Billion by 2031, Growing 60% a Year

New York, NY

Ellery Voss Advisors, a New York and Hong Kong-based tech-enabled growth advisory firm, today released “La Próxima Ola,” a research report on the Spanish-language short drama opportunity. The report sizes the combined U.S. Hispanic, Mexican, Latin American, and Spanish micro-drama market at $369 million in 2025, growing to $6.2 billion by 2031, a compound annual growth rate of nearly 60%.

According to the Ellery Voss Short-Form Drama Industry Report, the global short drama market is expected to grow from $15 billion in 2025 to more than $68 billion in 2031, a 29% CAGR, driven primarily by expansion outside China. By 2031, Ellery Voss estimates Hispanic and Spanish-language viewers will account for roughly 23% of the ex-China consumer market, about 2.8 times the segment’s share of ex-China population. U.S. Hispanic viewers are projected to generate $3.1 billion of the 2031 total, with Mexico and the rest of Latin America together contributing $3.0 billion.

“The next wave is coming, don’t get caught inside,” said Michael Tew, Managing Partner of Ellery Voss Advisors.  “The audience, format and economics all line up, yet very few platforms are designed specifically for Hispanic and Latin American viewers.  Market entrants who tackle this segment today will be platformed for success tomorrow.”

Hispanic Audiences Naturally Vertical

The report describes an audience that is both large and mobile-first. The 68.5 million U.S. Hispanics hold approximately $4.1 trillion in purchasing power, and 57% of Hispanic adults use TikTok versus 28% of White adults. The format is also familiar: TelevisaUnivision reports that Univision novelas deliver twice the adults 18-49 viewership of English-language broadcast dramas, and telenovela mechanics such as cliffhangers and family dynasties map directly onto vertical micro-drama.

Canela Media’s Hispanic Cultural Cohorts Study of 1,975 self-identified Hispanic respondents (May 2026) found that 96% had watched drama series and 90% telenovelas in the past year, 78% watch video on a mobile phone, and 61% use free, ad-supported streaming apps, against 46% for paid streaming. Some 83% feel more connected to brands that depict people like them.

Mexico offers an early template for vertical entertainment. Citing Sensor Tower and AppsFlyer, Expansión reports that Mexican micro-drama downloads rose 170% year over year, against 33% in Brazil, and Latin American users retain better than the global average, with 20% still active on day one.

On monetization, the report expects in-app purchase conversion to run below population share for Hispanic audiences because of payment frictions. The model closes most of that gap by 2031 as free, ad-supported models, brand partnerships, and live commerce lower the barrier. Advertising is a second lever: in the first quarter of 2025, U.S. online retailers spent $363 million on English-language digital ads and $3.4 million on Spanish-language, a ratio of 107 to 1, according to data from Nielsen.

Wide-Open Competitive Field

Very few platforms are pursuing a Hispanic-only strategy. Media incumbents including TelevisaUnivision’s ViX Micro, NBCUniversal’s Telemundo, and Caracol Televisión have moved, and purpose-built entrants such as Fuego Shorts, Idilio TV, Shorta, Vyco, and Canela Media’s forthcoming Zully are building audiences or preparing to launch.

A Playbook for Market Players

For any platform, studio, or media company entering the category, the report recommends three stages, each funding the next: launch vertical and Spanish-language, monetize through brand partnerships embedded in the story, then add live vertical shopping built around those brands. Ellery Voss expects the market to follow the same path, from a land grab through 2027 to brand partnerships and, ultimately, commerce.

To request a copy of “La Próxima Ola,” contact Ellery Voss Advisors at [email protected] or visit www.elleryvossadvisors.com.

About Ellery Voss Advisors, LLC

Ellery Voss Advisors is a New York and Hong Kong-based tech-enabled growth advisory firm serving growth-stage and emerging companies at the intersection of technology and high-growth industries. The firm advises clients on mergers and acquisitions, capital formation strategy, public company readiness, and strategic growth initiatives. Ellery Voss combines deep sector research with hands-on advisory expertise to help companies navigate complex markets, attract strategic capital, prepare corporate infrastructure for institutional investment and go-public transactions, and build durable competitive positions. The firm’s inaugural industry research publication “The Short-Form Drama Industry: From Niche to Mainstream” reflects its commitment to proprietary, independent analysis as a foundation for client advisory work.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including projections regarding market size, growth rates, and industry trends. These statements are based on Ellery Voss Advisors’ proprietary research and analysis as of the date of this release and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Estimates for Mexico, Latin America, and Spain are directional planning estimates. Actual results may differ materially from those projected. Ellery Voss Advisors undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Research Disclaimer

This press release references proprietary industry research prepared by Ellery Voss Advisors for informational purposes only. Statements attributed to individuals are those of the speakers. Canela Media survey figures are company-reported and not independently verified. Neither this release nor any research referenced herein constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell any security or financial instrument. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable but is not guaranteed as to accuracy or completeness.