Neptune Privacy unveils its Leviathan roadmap, outlining a private L2, upcoming testnet, smart contracts, NeptuneSwap, bridges and audits.
Author: Akshay
23rd September 2026 – Neptune Privacy published the roadmap for Leviathan, its planned private execution layer, on September 22, 2026. The post calls Leviathan the project’s Layer 2 and “the foundation for what comes next.” Yet the attached graphic marks almost the entire Leviathan stack as still unbuilt.
High Signal Summary For A Quick Glance
Matt Gems
@MattShiller_
@NeptunePrivacy Private smart contracts and cross-chain interoperability introduce significant design challenges around state visibility, verification and composability
THE NEXT ERA OF NEPTUNE PRIVACY HAS ARRIVED. Today, we are unveiling the roadmap for Leviathan: Neptune Privacy’s private execution layer and the foundation for what comes next. $XNT’s privacy-first Layer 1 is already live. Core components of the Leviathan stack are built, https://t.co/yw5kwyKypb
07:02 PM·Sep 22, 2026
Steady attention without excessive speculation.
The announcement went out on X at 18:52 UTC. It frames the reveal as a new era for the privacy-focused chain. The graphic itself tells a more measured story.
The roadmap is a single infographic, not a dated engineering spec. It splits the design into two layers. Layer 1 is Neptune Privacy, a privacy-first proof-of-work chain whose token is XNT. Layer 2 is Leviathan, connected to the base chain by what the graphic calls an “L1 ZK trustless bridge.”
The graphic lists six phases. Only the first, the Layer 1 foundation, carries a shipped mark. That block covers private transfers, transparent STARK proofs through Triton VM, and a public explorer. According to the project, those pieces are already live.
Everything else sits in the future. The Leviathan stack, a public testnet, and cross-chain bridges all appear as outstanding. So do a private DEX called NeptuneSwap and independent security audits. In short, the roadmap describes ambition, and the checkmarks describe a chain that has only shipped its base layer.
The near-term list matches that reading. The post names public testnet, private smart contracts, NeptuneSwap, Confidential AI, and cross-chain interoperability as what comes next.
Neptune Privacy launched its XNT privacy L1 in late 2025, while Leviathan remains a planned execution layer.
Neptune Privacy introduces $XNT as a low-emission fork of Neptune Cash.
XNT opens its initial unincentivized public testnet.
The privacy-focused PoW L1 launches with public code and an explorer.
XNT releases a mandatory Triton VM security fix and hard fork.
Leviathan is presented as a Miden-based L2 with a public testnet described as imminent.
Leviathan moves to a capped Pioneers testnet instead of the previously expected public launch.
The roadmap marks the L1 as shipped, while the Leviathan stack and public testnet remain outstanding.
Next steps include contracts, NeptuneSwap, Confidential AI, interoperability, then L2 mainnet and audits.
The tweet and the graphic send different signals. The written post says “core components of the Leviathan stack are built, others are nearing completion.” However, the graphic marks that same stack as not done.
The timeline sharpens the gap. Back on April 9, 2026, the project said a public testnet was “imminent.” It also claimed block times under one second and more than 3,000 transactions per second. In May, business development lead Ashton told BSCN the Layer 2 was live in testnet and mainnet was “weeks” away.
Neither claim has aged well. As of September 22, the graphic still lists the public testnet as the next milestone, not a shipped one. That is a five-month slip from “imminent.” The performance figures also remain unverified by any independent source, so treat them as claims rather than benchmarks.
This distinction matters for anyone researching the token. Neptune Privacy and its XNT coin are a community fork of Neptune Cash, which the team announced on Medium on November 19, 2025. Cryptographers Alan Szepieniec and Thorkil Vaerge built the original Neptune Cash project, ticker NPT.
Those founders did not move to the fork. Vaerge publicly acknowledged the split on November 21, 2025, kept the original 42 million cap, and criticized the new token’s distribution model. So a buyer who thinks XNT is the Szepieniec-led project is looking at a different asset with different leadership.
The fork’s stated reason was monetary policy, specifically emissions, rather than a new proof system. As a result, XNT inherits the parent chain’s cryptography while charting its own supply schedule.
The market response was modest. XNT traded near $0.30 around the announcement, according to CoinMarketCap and BeInCrypto. CoinGecko locale pages, though, showed prints closer to $0.17. Market cap sits in a roughly $590,000 to $720,000 range across aggregators.
Volume is thin. Daily turnover ran about $24,000 to $28,000, and DefiLlama showed no DEX volume at all. Most trading happens on MEXC, which listed XNT/USDT in April. In a book this small, modest flow moves the price, so the day’s gain does not prove a broad reaction.
The engagement told a similar story. About 18 hours after posting, the roadmap tweet had 44 likes, 21 reposts, and 659 views against a 4,260-follower account. That is a niche audience, not a sector-wide moment.
The Neptune Privacy Leviathan design leans on the parent chain’s cryptography. The Layer 1 hides sender, receiver, and amount using zk-STARKs through Triton VM. It also uses a commitment structure called a mutator set. The project markets the stack as post-quantum, and it runs on proof-of-work.
That inheritance cuts both ways. In January 2026, security firm OtterSec disclosed a critical soundness bug in Triton VM that affected Neptune Cash. The parent project also suffered an inflation bug in 2025 that forced a network reboot. Because XNT forked this code, it shares that family of risk.
Leviathan aims to add a programmable layer on top. The project describes a Miden VM fork for private smart contracts and a wrapped asset called WXNT. It also touts trusted execution environments for what it brands Confidential AI. Still, Miden and Polygon have not confirmed the claimed relationship, and no public Leviathan repository appears under the project’s GitHub org.
The tell is the testnet. A public, open-access Leviathan testnet with a working wallet, explorer, and faucet would turn roadmap claims into something observers can check. Until then, the Layer 2 remains a plan rather than a running network.
Independent audits are the second signal. The graphic lists them under a future mainnet phase, which means they have not happened yet. For a privacy chain built on code with a documented soundness bug, that gap deserves attention.
The base chain is real and running. The Neptune Privacy Leviathan execution layer, by the project’s own checklist, is not there yet. Readers weighing XNT should separate the two and remember that none of this is financial advice.
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