Shapeshift revives privacy focus with Zcash shielded support

Multichain DEX aggregator Shapeshift announced support for shielded (private) transactions with the Zcash privacy cryptocurrency.

According to a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph, ShapeShift’s self-custodial decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator and self-custodial wallet now support Zcash (ZEC) shielded transactions. The announcement comes as Zcash Community Grants allotted $50,000 to support ShapeShift’s technical and marketing investments.

According to the announcement, with this move, the organization aims to “offer true privacy on-chain for its users.”

This follows ShapeShift’s delisting of anoncoins, also known as privacy coins, in 2020 amid regulatory pressure. Still, this was back when ShapeShift operated as a centralized instant exchange, before it transitioned to being a DEX aggregator and removing Know Your Customer burdens the following year.

“Integrating shielded ZEC into ShapeShift DAO expands access to unstoppable private money,” the Zcash community grants team said. “It gives the ShapeShift community a decentralized path to acquire and use ZEC without relying on centralized exchanges, aligning perfectly with the values of privacy, freedom, and self-custody that Zcash was built for.”

Related: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027

The infrastructure

A ShapeShift decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) representative said in the Zcash forums that “ShapeShift today is a DAO, not the centralized company that [it was] back in 2016.”

“Back then, regulatory pressure did lead to ZEC being delisted, but that was under a totally different structure. Now, ShapeShift DAO is community-governed, fully open, and building in public.“

Shapeshift is leveraging a node network provided by blockchain infrastructure firm Liquify for execution. The DEX aggregator also redesigned the application interface “into a cleaner, Uniswap-style swapper optimized for mobile.”

Related: Zcash founder joins Shielded Labs, pushes for hybrid PoS upgrade

Crypto privacy faces mounting pressure

Arthur Firstov, chief business officer at crypto payment processor Mercuryo, told Cointelegraph that “privacy is the foundation of trust.” Zcash leverages zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs) to offer optional shielded transactions where the amount transmitted, sender and receiver are not publicly known.

Since Zcash launched in late 2016, ZK-proofs have grown in popularity as an area of development. Firstov explained that such “proofs are a method that a user can use for proving that something is true without revealing their data.”

Still, applications that prioritize financial privacy often attract the anger of regulators. According to mid-September reports, the European Union’s sweeping Anti-Money Laundering rules appear to be set to ban privacy-preserving tokens and anonymous crypto accounts starting in 2027.

Others suggest that regulation may worsen the situation. Ki Young Ju, CEO of crypto analytics firm CryptoQuant, said in May that censorship-resistant “dark stablecoins” could become increasingly in demand as governments tighten their oversight of the industry.

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