Tornado Cash developer Ameen Soleimani says the new mixing app Privacy Pools offers the possibility to prove that you have nothing to do with malicious actors. Privacy Pools aims to change the U.S. perspective on privacy mixers.
On March 4, Ameen Soleimani published a code of Privacy Pools on Github. Then he came on Twitter and explained what the critical flaw of Tornado Cash, the crypto mixer banned in the US, was. According to Soleimani, it’s that “users weren’t able to prove that they weren’t associated with North Korea.”
Privacy Pools offers a way for depositors and withdrawers to choose not to participate in an anonymity set that includes an address linked to stolen or laundered funds. This aspect of Privacy Pools is achieved through the use of zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, which ensure that the user’s privacy is maintained:
With privacy pools, just because someone deposits into the same smart contract as you, it doesn’t mean they can also force you into sharing an anonymity set with them. It’s your choice.
Soleimani believes Privacy Pools “enhances user sovereignty by giving users more choice, not less”, as it allows “to defend against hackers abusing the anonymity sets of honest users without requiring blanket regulation or sacrificing on crypto ideals.”
However, the developer points out that the mixer, which is now live on Optimism, is not the final product:
For this to work, we need data providers like Chainlaysis and TRM Labs to do tracebacks on deposits, so users don’t have to manually create their own subset exclusion lists. We need UI providers to reference those lists.
Ameen adds that Privacy Tools is starting a conversation with regulators to “understand a potentially more attractive equilibrium between privacy and regulation that we didn’t even know existed a few months ago.”
Then he adds:
Please stop jailing our devs. #FreeAlexey
Related: Tornado Cash developer will remain in custody for another three months
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