No forks required! Bitcoin privacy scheme sparks controversy

According to Woofun AI, the cryptographic research team Alloc Init officially launched the “Block Bitcoin” scheme, which aims to implement a private transmission function similar to Zcash for the Bitcoin network without triggering a soft fork. The solution attempts to restructure the transaction privacy level through technical means on the basis of keeping the underlying protocol consensus mechanism unchanged, to provide a new compliance and privacy balance path for Bitcoin users who have been struggling with transparent ledger characteristics for a long time, and marks the latest experiment in zero-knowledge proof technology in mainstream public chain sidechaining applications.

Clara Shikherman, Mikhail Komarov, and Alexey Moskovin jointly unveiled the technical blueprint on Thursday. The core architecture abandons the traditional idea of letting miners implement privacy agreements and instead sees Bitcoin as a neutral publishing and sorting layer. Under this framework, specialized indexer software has key responsibilities: verifying zero-knowledge proofs, verifying that funds have not been reused, and reconstructing the state of the privacy system.

According to data compiled by Woofun AI, the design deeply draws on Zcash logic and uses encrypted notes, public invalidation mechanisms to mark note consumption, and zero-knowledge proofs to ensure transaction effectiveness. It is worth noting that “blocking Bitcoin” does not build an independent blockchain or consensus mechanism, but rather relies entirely on existing infrastructure for state synchronization and verification.

However, the effectiveness of privacy protection is closely linked to the user base, and this structural flaw has been severely scrutinized by industry experts. Developer Vadim Zavodir pointed out on the X platform that privacy depends on the size of the user group. Zcash took years of accumulation to establish an effective anonymous set, and the new system started from scratch, and the initial situation may even fall into the plight of a one-person group. R&D personnel also acknowledged in a supporting article that large deposits do not automatically translate into high anonymity; if a few people lead the creation of encrypted notes, or specific wallets show special behavior patterns, observers can still sort out transaction relationships through on-chain analysis.

In terms of security, Pauli Group founder Pierre-Luc Dalaire Demers made sharp criticism, arguing that the solution was completely incapable of resisting quantum attacks. Although he is exploring alternative versions based on post-quantum signature schemes, the current architecture is extremely vulnerable to quantum computing threats. In contrast, Zerocash co-founder and StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson was supportive. He pointed out that the original purpose of the Zerocash paper was to bring privacy to Bitcoin, and although he hasn't read the new paper carefully, he is looking forward to realizing his vision of privacy and scalability through zero-knowledge proof.