PEOPLEDEVELOPMENT

Privacy OGs quarrel! Developers of Privacy Pools clash with the founder of Zcash

share
Privacy OGs quarrel! Developers of Privacy Pools clash with the founder of Zcash

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, and others jointly released a white paper titled "Balancing Blockchain Privacy and Regulatory Compliance." Developer Ameen Soleimani of Privacy Pools clashed with the early privacy protocol Zcash founder, claiming the latter was being difficult. What's the story behind this?

Privacy Pools Developer: Hypocrisy of the Zcash Team

Privacy Pools developer Ameen Soleimani stated that the hypocrisy of Zcash leaders has reached new heights. On August 8, 2022, the same day the privacy protocol Tornado Cash was sanctioned. They wrote, "Zcash is committed to anti-money laundering, complies with FATF regulations, and claims that Zcash has never been used for money laundering or terrorist financing."

When Vitalik Buterin and Ameen Soleimani released the Privacy Pools whitepaper, Zcash attacked the design without hesitation.

Zcash founder Zooko stated that Privacy Pools is not a good idea for three reasons:

  1. It assumes guilt until proven innocent
  2. It does not bring privacy to the average person
  3. Zcash is useful, and we should learn from it

Zcash believes Privacy Pools are overly compliant and in some way lead society astray.

Related news on Zooko: Zcash Founder Criticizes WHO's Unreliability, Commends Taiwan's Epidemic Prevention Achievements

Concerns of the Privacy Pools Developer

Privacy Pools developer Ameen Soleimani questions why, if Zcash is compliant, bringing privacy tools into Ethereum through Privacy Pools and providing a way to comply with AML/FATF anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing is a bad thing.

When faced with the sanctioning of the privacy protocol Tornado Cash, Zach directly distanced himself from any potential criminal associations. So why would it be bad for Privacy Pools to help people disassociate from criminal ties and enter an anonymous subset? Wouldn't it be great if we could use zero-knowledge proofs to prove our innocence?

"They are afraid that Privacy Pools will actually succeed," Ameen Soleimani stated.

The Future of Privacy Pools

Privacy Pools developer Ameen Soleimani envisions a future where there is a privacy pool on every chain that can prove no association with known criminals, support various asset types, and hopes that privacy pools will attract a large number of "non-criminal" privacy users.

Ameen Soleimani mentioned that while Zooko, the founder of Zcash, is still arguing about ideology, Ethereum developers are facing imprisonment, hinting at the Tornado Cash developers.