0xbow.io Launches Privacy Pools on Ethereum to Enhance Transaction Privacy

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Highlights:

Privacy Pools enable users to make private transactions and also flag illegal activities.
The tool allows users to prove that their funds are clean without revealing details.
Privacy pools stand out from other privacy platforms, such as Tornado Cash.

0xbow.io has launched a new privacy tool on Ethereum called Privacy Pools. The tool allows users to keep their transactions private while it also ensures that their funds are not associated with any illegal activities. The tool uses a system called Association Sets that pools transactions into anonymous groups and screens them to exclude illegal funds. However, if a transaction is later proved to be related to some suspicious activity, a cut can be made from a pool of other deposits not being affected.

gm Ethereum

It is our great honor to announce the mainnet launch of Privacy Pools!

ETH users can now achieve on-chain privacy, while still dissociating from illicit funds

It is now up to all of us to Make Privacy Normal Again

More info in this thread pic.twitter.com/3nJO0AxoD1

— 0xbow.io (@0xbowio) March 31, 2025

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, supported the project and made one of the first deposits. 0xbow.io stated that users who have their deposits disqualified can retrieve their funds using a feature called “ragequit.” The team aims to create a system that enables private transactions while also addressing concerns about illicit financial activities. The tool initially limits deposits to 1 Ether, but 0xbow.io plans to raise this as the platform’s reliability grows. Users have transferred over 21 ETH to privacy pools so far.

The team has credited several people who contributed to a whitepaper that outlines how privacy pools work. Audit Wizard, a firm co-founded by a former Apple engineer, successfully performed a security audit on the Privacy Pools code.

How Privacy Pools Differ from Tornado Cash

The use of privacy tools in facilitating illicit financial activities has posed major challenges to them. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash between August 2022 and March 2025 for its links with the Lazarus Group, which laundered around $7 billion through the tool. Nevertheless, in January 2025, a US appeals court found the sanctions illegal, and Tornado Cash was removed from OFAC’s blacklist.

Unlike Tornado Cash, Privacy Pools provides a new approach that enables users to prove that their funds are clean without disclosing the details of the transaction. The Association Sets feature enables this process by allowing clean transactions to remain in the pool. The system can also tolerate the later removal of an entry without disrupting the system if the entry is later found to be illegal. This gives a certain amount of privacy while making sure that any questionable funds do not get settled in the platform.

An important difference with Privacy Pools is that the funds of users are automatically dissociated in case one deposit is taken to be suspicious. Unlike anonymization alone, the system allows users to choose whether to publicly prove that funds in their accounts are not linked to illicit sources. With this method, Privacy Pools are able to tackle financial crime issues while also enabling users to have private transactions.

Future Outlook and Adoption

0xbow.io will gradually expand the platform as it continues to earn trust and security validation. The team is working on making the system more efficient for users. Moreover, the team may increase the 1 ETH deposit limit in the future. The project hopes to build a tool that achieves a balance between financial privacy and secure transactions.

In a separate development, Buterin has proposed a new framework to enhance Layer-2 rollup security on Ethereum. He proposes a hybrid-proof system that combines zero-knowledge proofs and trusted execution environments.