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Ryan Sean Adams

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
1143 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

And when you do the third step, they, depending on all the details, can see something happened over here, right?

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

They can put two and two together because this emitted information and this emitted information.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

In some cases, the attacker is going to be able to get both of those signals and they're going to be able to put it together, especially with AI, right?

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

So the point is, it doesn't matter how little information the middle step emitted.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

If you take your Bitcoin or Ethereum, you move it into Zcash.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

I'm getting worked up about this because...

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

So many people are so wrong about this.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

Like 99% of people, it has never occurred to them that there's any other possible way to do anything than to do it this way.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

But this way, it's like 100% fail, and they're still doing it.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

Like they've been doing it since before Zcash.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

No, Zcash existed.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

Remember when Shapeshift, we're probably talking like 2017, Shapeshift was the most widely used coin swapping service for a long time.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

Remember that?

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

Yep.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

During those years, the most common use of ShapeShift was that people would bring Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash or Litecoin to ShapeShift and they would swap it for either Zcash or Monero.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

Then they would swap it back for Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin or Litecoin.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

So this is exactly the same pattern.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

Anyone who has the ability to watch the blockchains can trivially link those two states with each other.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

And this is true even if the middle thing, Zcash or Monero, did the best possible job of leaking no additional information.

Bankless
Zcash Founder on Privacy, AI, and How ZEC is 'Encrypted Bitcoin' | Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn

Even if it leaked zero additional information, which Zcash more or less does, it doesn't matter because step one and step three