ShapeShift has reintroduced support for Zcash’s shielded transactions, marking its return to privacy-focused cryptocurrency after transitioning into a DEX aggregator.
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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 aggregator and self-custodial wallet now support Zcash () shielded transactions. The announcement comes as 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 , also known as , in 2020 amid regulatory pressure. Still, this was back when ShapeShift operated as a centralized instant exchange, before it r 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.”
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The infrastructure
A ShapeShift representative said in the Zcash 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.”
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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 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 appear to be set to ban privacy-preserving tokens and anonymous .
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 as governments tighten their oversight of the industry.
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