JUST IN: Developer Misha Komarov explains proposal framework for private transfers on Bitcoin without a need for a soft fork in detail 👀 Bullish for Bitcoin privacy 🚀

@watchbmtv @nemothenoone @realseanhagan @GraceRemiTV This is good.

@watchbmtv @nemothenoone @realseanhagan @GraceRemiTV privacy without a soft fork is the upgrade path that actually ships

@watchbmtv @nemothenoone @realseanhagan @GraceRemiTV That’s a serious win for Bitcoin. Bullish 🚀

@watchbmtv @nemothenoone @realseanhagan @GraceRemiTV privacy upgrades that ship are the ones that matter tbh

@watchbmtv @nemothenoone @realseanhagan @GraceRemiTV

🦈 👀 THIS COULD BE A HUGE STEP FOR BITCOIN PRIVACY. Developer Misha Komarov and the team at [[alloc] init] have detailed a framework for PRIVATE Bitcoin transfers... WITHOUT a soft fork. The proposal is called: **SHIELDED BITCOIN** The idea is essentially to bring Zcash-style shielded transactions to Bitcoin while leaving Bitcoin’s existing consensus rules untouched. Instead of changing Bitcoin Script, the heavy lifting happens through cryptography. The system uses: • Zero-knowledge proofs • Witness encryption • Bitcoin PIPEs • Encrypted “notes” representing shielded BTC Users could deposit BTC into a shielded pool, privately transfer those notes, split them, spend them and eventually withdraw back into normal Bitcoin. And from Bitcoin’s perspective? The final spend can still look like an ordinary valid Schnorr-signed Bitcoin transaction. No federation. No company controlling the pool. No new blockchain. No hard fork. No soft fork. That is the BIG idea. Move the programmability into CRYPTOGRAPHY instead of changing Bitcoin itself. There are still major hurdles. The system is experimental, transactions would be larger and more expensive, and the underlying witness-encryption technology still needs serious testing before anyone should treat this as production-ready. But if developers can make it practical... Bitcoin could potentially gain MUCH stronger privacy without forcing the entire network through another contentious protocol upgrade. **Bitcoin keeps the conservative base layer.** Developers build the experimentation around it. That is an incredibly Bitcoin-native way to approach privacy. $BTC 🦈

@watchbmtv @nemothenoone @realseanhagan @GraceRemiTV Privacy money without asking anyone's permission was the entire e-gold pitch in 1996: gold-backed internet cash anyone could hold and spend. Twenty-nine years later the same argument is back on the agenda, this time as a proposal.

@watchbmtv @nemothenoone @realseanhagan @GraceRemiTV Interesting

@watchbmtv @nemothenoone @realseanhagan @GraceRemiTV Who needs Monero and Zcash after this? Answer: Nobody.