Citrea Acquires Crest to Embed Zcash-Style Privacy into Bitcoin Wallet

Citrea has acquired Crest, a self-custodial private Bitcoin wallet, to bring Zcash-style privacy to the world's largest cryptocurrency. The acquisition is part of Citrea's effort to embed zero-knowledge privacy pools into its mobile wallet.

The company argues that Bitcoin's transparent public ledger exposes user balances and transaction histories to anyone, a problem that will only compound as the asset's market capitalization grows. Users who want privacy today must forfeit self-custody or swap into alternative assets.

Crest founder Meliksah Gurtemel joins Citrea as Product Lead. 'Solving Bitcoin privacy is the single largest unlock for meeting real user demand on a Bitcoin layer,' said Orkun Mahir Kılıç, co-founder and CEO of Chainway Labs. The wallet will enable automatic shielding, private BTC transfers, and cross-chain onboarding from Bitcoin and Ethereum.