“No Positive Use for Privacy?”- The Perception We Must Change. Ameen Soleimani, Oxbow

Thu, Oct 2, 2025, 12:00 AM

Ameen Soleimani (CTO, Oxbow) on building Privacy Pools—on-chain privacy that excludes known bad actors. He covers: - Tornado Cash’s arc (grants, growth, sanctions) and why we need to reframe privacy as a public good. - How Oxbow’s whitelist + waiting-period model works while remaining non-custodial. - Legal updates & support links for Tornado Cash developers (Alexey, Roman). - ZK beyond money: Freedom Tool & Iranians.vote, private voting with passport proofs. - Cypherpunk today, privacy 101 habits, and a future of blockchain-based governance. Timecodes 00:00 – Intro: Ameen Soleimani, CTO of Oxbow 00:22 – Setting: Devcon, lots of privacy projects this week 00:33 – Background: ConsenSys (MetaMask, Gnosis, Infura), payments, RAI, DAOs, now privacy 01:24 – Why privacy? MolochDAO grants to Tornado Cash; later abuse → sanctions & arrests 03:41 – “Privacy for the good guys”: changing the narrative; Tornado’s (little-known) compliance tool 04:21 – Judge’s claim of “no positive use case” & why useful products must prove otherwise 04:50 – Tornado Cash case status: Alexey’s sentence/appeal; Roman’s upcoming trial; donation links 06:05 – DOJ memo vs. prosecution; gov’t isn’t monolithic 06:53 – Can you exclude terrorists/bad funds? What’s feasible on-chain 08:20 – What is Oxbow/Privacy Pools? Whitelist, waiting period, approved sources vs. rejects 09:36 – Non-custodial design: users can always withdraw back to the origin 10:24 – KYC isn’t sufficient if funds come from hacks 10:36 – Base-layer privacy as default? Excitement & risks; need ways to dissociate from abuse 11:42 – Hard parts of base-layer privacy (everything becomes part of the anonymity set) 12:49 – Privacy Pools origins: Vitalik’s idea → ETHDenver prototype → paper → company 14:55 – Why Oxbow starts centralized on the whitelist (legal prudence), path to multiple lists later 15:47 – Live now: mainnet ETH; ERC-20 and cross-chain next (privacypools.com) 15:54 – Ethereum in ~near future: L2 UX, faster/cheaper, better ZK; social ZK use cases 16:48 – Freedom Tool: ZK passport proofs, shadow elections; Iranians.vote fork 18:46 – Voting on-chain with ZK: viable in the future 19:44 – What is a cypherpunk today? 22:05 – Virgil Griffith’s take: cypherpunks weren’t ambitious enough; build pro-social systems 24:32 – Privacy 101: VPNs, anonymous crypto, secure devices; learn by using tools 25:25 – “Deposit all your ETH,” terrorists not allowed 25:54 – 30-year future: programmable, transparent institutions; blockchain-based governance ideas 27:54 – “Constitutional monarchy” on-chain thought experiment; permissions, budgets, exit rights 29:29 – Cultural rec: learn modern Iranian history; Ameen’s pinned thread as a starter 31:38 – Wrap-up ... This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews – a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info/p/interviews A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey Let privacy be with you!