PANews reported on April 1 that according to The Block, 0xbow, a team of cryptographers including Ethereum senior developers Ameen Soleimani and Zak Cole, recently launched a new tool to enhance on-chain privacy. According to an announcement released by the X platform, the technology called "Privacy Pools" was officially launched on the mainnet on Monday. The privacy pool is a hybrid network system that uses zero-knowledge proofs and "Association Set Providers" to ensure that only "clean" funds can enter the fund pool. Its goal is to provide privacy protection for ordinary cryptocurrency users while maintaining regulatory compliance.
Users can deposit and withdraw ERC-20 tokens privately using zero-knowledge proofs, while an Association Set Provider (ASP) will ensure compliance by reviewing funds. The operation process includes: connecting to networks such as Ethereum or Layer 2 Gnosis through a compatible wallet, creating a dedicated 0xbow wallet, depositing funds into the pool, and withdrawing to a new shielded address. Unlike traditional mixers such as Tornado Cash, privacy pools can set up association set providers to maintain lists of sanctioned or suspicious accounts. 0xbow or other entities can act as gatekeepers to prevent problematic funds from entering the mixing pool.
0xbow has received investment from institutions such as Bankless, Number Group, and Public Works, and angel investors such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin have also participated. The 0xbow protocol originated from a paper co-authored by Buterin in 2023 with Chainalysis researcher Jacob Illum and scholars Matthias Nadler, Fabian Schar and others.
