Nov 2, 2026 · 1h 12m
Researchers propose private Bitcoin without a fork
The Plan to Make Bitcoin Private | Misha Komarov & Clara Shikhelman
Shielded Bitcoin could make transactions private without changing Bitcoin’s base protocol, but its cryptography, liquidity, governance, and legal risks remain unresolved.
- 1Shielded Bitcoin aims to hide sender, recipient, and amount without a fork, trusted mixer, or centralized operator.
- 2Pipes provides the proposed entry and exit mechanism, while shielded notes, nullifiers, and proofs handle private transfers.
- 3The project remains a research prototype requiring open testing, audits, formal verification, public criticism, and further protocol work.
Don't miss
Clara walks through how shielded notes, nullifiers, proofs, and wallet-state reconstruction could hide Bitcoin transfers while allowing later exits.
The brief
Misha Komarov and Clara Shikhelman argue that Bitcoin’s growing institutional and governmental relevance makes privacy more urgent, while its conservative governance makes protocol changes difficult.
Shielded Bitcoin would hide the sender, recipient, and amount without a fork or trusted mixer, aiming to preserve self-custody and verifiability rather than outsource privacy.
The proposed system uses Pipes for peg-ins and peg-outs, then shielded notes, private keys, nullifiers, and proofs to transfer value without directly linking entry and exit transactions.
The design faces practical constraints, including liquidity, wallet integration, larger transactions, quantum threats, legal exposure, and the difficulty of building privacy tools Bitcoin users will trust.
The team describes Pipes as a working research prototype, not a finished product, and says open-source testing, audits, formal verification, and adversarial review must come first.
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