Privacy without Terrorists | Ameen Soleimani (0xbow) at ETHConf

Sun, Aug 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

In this talk, Ameen Soleimani, CTO of 0xbow, presents his approach to privacy without terrorists, opening with gratitude for being American and a warning that cypherpunk values of free speech and open source depend on American law. He recounts the history of Tornado Cash, the original privacy protocol on Ethereum, built because Ethereum users were jealous of Zcash's private money features. His nonprofit MolochDAO funded the initial grants in 2019 and coordinated setting the admin key to zero so the protocol was immutable forever, making it the second ZK-SNARK deployment in history after Zcash. People used it for personal privacy and Vitalik used it to support Ukraine, but after North Korea stole over $600 million and ran hundreds of millions through it, the US Treasury sanctioned the protocol in August 2022, and developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm each received five year sentences. Ameen argues the Tornado Cash devs should not be held liable for users' crimes since they had no criminal intent and the protocol was immutable, warning that Roman's conviction for unlicensed money transmission (despite being non-custodial) implies everything is illegal, since even Etherscan could be considered a money services business. He stresses the appeal succeeding matters for clarity across Ethereum wallets and applications. Addressing the anonymity set problem, he explains privacy pools, developed in a paper co-authored with Vitalik and chain analysis researchers, where users voluntarily prove their deposit belongs to an association set of non-illicit funds without revealing which one, separating good money from bad while avoiding a data honeypot. He details how 0xbow performs KYT checks rejecting untrusted sources while allowing rejected funds to rage quit as an escape hatch preserving non-custodianship. Having anonymized over $20 million on mainnet over a year, he introduces privacy pools v2 (live on Sepolia) with a shielded pool for fully anonymous in-pool transfers hiding sender, receiver, amount, and timing, compliance by default, and features like private payment requests and future DeFi yield. He closes arguing the compromise of hard entry and exclusion without retroactive deanonymization is right, since backdoors can be turned against you, and that privacy will become a national security concern. 00:00 Introduction 00:11 Gratitude for Being American 00:51 Why Cypherpunk Values Depend on American Law 01:19 The Origins of Tornado Cash 01:49 MolochDAO Funding and the Immutable Admin Key 02:10 The Team That Rage Built It in Three Weeks 02:20 Personal Privacy and Supporting Ukraine 02:43 North Korea and the Treasury Sanctions 03:04 Supporting Roman Storm at the Courthouse 03:26 Why the Devs Could Not Be Liable 03:45 The Compliance Tool They Built 04:00 Why the Conviction Makes Everything Illegal 04:30 Why Roman's Appeal Must Succeed 04:45 The Protocol That Grew After the Sanctions 05:04 The Anonymity Set Responsibility 05:36 With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility 05:55 Correcting the No Legitimate Use Case Narrative 06:16 The Federal Reserve Report Recommendation 06:35 Why the Honeypot Problem Matters 06:41 The Privacy Pools Paper With Vitalik 07:21 How Association Sets Work 07:49 Separating Good Money From Bad 08:00 Presenting the Paper at the Bank of International Settlements 08:14 How the Deposit and KYT Check Works 08:35 The Rage Quit Escape Hatch 08:50 A Year Live: Over $20 Million Anonymized 08:58 Privacy Pools V2 and the Shielded Pool 09:21 Why Shielded Pools Beat Confidentiality 09:42 Compliance by Default 10:09 How Rejecting a Deposit Protects Everyone 10:34 Features: Private Payments and Future Yield 10:59 Walking Through the Deposit Flow 11:28 Approval Times on Mainnet 11:59 Making a Private Withdrawal 12:25 The Rage Quit Exit 12:56 Private Payment Requests 13:37 Why No Retroactive Deanonymization 13:50 Why Backdoors Can Be Used Against You 14:16 Privacy as a National Security Concern 14:48 Closing: Win Here, Win for the World _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _