Bitcoin Private Transfers Get New Experimental Proposal

A proposal has been put forth to enable private Bitcoin transfers without altering the network's consensus layer. According to researchers led by Clara Shikheman, this can be achieved by leveraging the mixer logic used by Tornado Cash.

The proposed method would allow users to plug BTC into a private encrypted note, which can then be transferred around using ZK (zero-knowledge) proofs. This shields the sender, receiver, and the amount being moved, while assigning a new address at the exit point.

Commenting on the update, Clara Shikheman said: 'No soft forks, no bridges, no operators, just Bitcoin. We've put a lot of work into thinking carefully about the security of Shielded Bitcoin and about what information the protocol reveals. And this is just the beginning!'

Eli Ben-Sasson, founder of Starknet and one of the pioneers of ZK proofs, hailed the move: 'I love this direction; our original intent with Zerocash paper was to bring privacy to Bitcoin. I would love to see our vision of privacy and scalability via ZK materialize on Bitcoin L1.'