Researchers Publish 'Zcash-Style' Design for Private Bitcoin Transfers
In briefResearchers at [[alloc] init] have published a specification for Shielded Bitcoin, a protocol for private transfers on the Bitcoin base layer.The design borrows Zcashs encrypted notes and zero-knowledge proofs, and requires no changes to Bitcoins consensus rules.Mechanisms for moving BTC into and out of the shielded system are not covered and are due in a separate paper. Researchers at Bitcoin cryptography developer [[alloc] init] have published a design for “ZCash-style” private transfers that would hide the sender, recipient and amount of a payment while running on the existing Bitcoin network. The 56-page paper, dated September 24, 2026, is written by Clara Shikhelman, Mikhail Komarov and Aleksei Moskvin. The team has “put a lot of work into thinking carefully about the security of Shielded Bitcoin and about what information the protocol reveals,” Shikhelman tweeted. Komarov called it “ZCash-style privacy on the Bitcoin L1 via PIPEs v2.” ZCash-style privacy on the Bitcoin L1 via PIPEs v2. Scott Odell, chief operating officer of [[alloc] init], tweeted that the firm had been “cooking on this for quite a while,” and described it as a contribution to making Bitcoin “private, without changing Bitcoin.” Value in Shielded Bitcoin is held as encrypted “notes,” and each transfer carries a zero-knowledge proof that









