0xbow Implements Vitalik Buterin’s Alternative to Tornado Cash

The project 0xbow has unveiled Privacy Pools, a tool for on-chain privacy of Ethereum transactions. The concept of ‘privacy pools’ as an alternative to Tornado Cash was first proposed by a group of renowned researchers in 2023.

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

The authors of the article on Privacy Pools include Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, CTO of Reflexer Labs Amin Soleimani, Chief Scientist of Chainalysis Jacob Illum, as well as scholars Matthias Nadler and Fabian Schar.

The infrastructure developed by 0xbow offers a service for mixing ETH and ERC-20 tokens to ensure privacy without the risks of mingling funds with ‘tainted assets’ and violating regulatory requirements.

“It is now up to all of us to make privacy normal again,” the project stated.

Privacy Pools employs zero-knowledge proofs, which allow verification of membership in an approved set of contributors. Compliance control is managed by the Association Set Provider (ASP) mechanism. The system confirms deposits that meet specified criteria and ensures that private withdrawals are made exclusively from ‘clean’ deposits.

ASP updates automatically and can revoke a deposit at any stage. Users have the option to return coins to the original address if a deposit is rejected, making Privacy Pools a non-custodial solution.

Among the platform’s features, 0xbow developers highlighted the ability to manage all accounts in Privacy Pools through a single seed phrase. Partial withdrawals are also possible, with remaining funds continuing to be stored in the privacy pool.

Initially, the team limited the deposit size to 1 ETH (minimum — 0.1 ETH).

“We will raise these limits as our technology is tested in real-world conditions,” the team assured.

Investors in the project include Bankless, Number Group, Public Works, Buterin, and several business angels.

Back in 2023, the Ethereum co-founder described privacy as the “biggest remaining problem” of the network and proposed a solution.