The Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem is set to lose a crucial privacy-enhancing service as zkSNACKs has announced the discontinuation of its CoinJoin coordination service. Max Hillebrand, CEO of zkSNACKs, stated that this decision was made in order to ensure compliance with the latest legal and regulatory updates in the United States. Hillebrand emphasized that the closure of the CoinJoin service was necessary due to the lack of clarity surrounding cryptocurrency regulations and the use of privacy-enhancing tools in the US. Edward Snowden, a former NSA whistleblower, expressed his disappointment over the discontinuation of the service. Hillebrand confirmed that Wasabi Wallet, the Bitcoin wallet developed by zkSNACKs, will continue to function as a regular BTC wallet, allowing users to generate private keys for sending and receiving Bitcoin. Although the CoinJoin service will be discontinued, Hillebrand assured that Wasabi Wallet’s client-side filtering architecture, Tor integration, and custom coin selection will still provide significant privacy for users. However, he acknowledged that the level of privacy offered by CoinJoins will be unmatched going forward, as the nature of the Bitcoin blockchain itself prevents users from achieving complete privacy without CoinJoins. Hillebrand refrained from speculating on whether similar crackdowns on privacy protocols and CoinJoin services would occur in jurisdictions outside the US. The closure of zkSNACKs’ CoinJoin coordination service will also impact products and services across the ecosystem, including Trezor Suite and BTCPayServer. Cointelegraph has reached out to Trezor for comment on the closure and whether it will consider using another Bitcoin privacy-enhancing service for its users. Hillebrand explained during an interview that CoinJoin services effectively obfuscate Bitcoin transactions by combining multiple inputs and outputs from various users into a single transaction, making it much more difficult for external observers to discern specific transaction details. Wasabi Wallet, launched in 2018, offers anonymity through Tor, employs a light client approach for balance checks without compromising privacy, and uses block filters for efficient and secure transaction verification without downloading the entire Bitcoin blockchain.
zkSNACKs CEO assures that Bitcoin privacy will prevail despite the closure of CoinJoin.