Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of Zcash and StarkWare, has expressed support for the Shielded Bitcoin proposal. Published on September 24 by research firm Alloc Init, the project aims to integrate privacy features into the Bitcoin base layer. The proposal, authored by Misha Komarov, Aleksei Moskvin, and Clara Shikhelma, utilizes encrypted notes, public nullifiers, and zero-knowledge proofs.
The Shielded Bitcoin design relies on Bitcoin PIPEs and witness encryption, requiring no soft forks or consensus changes. Ben-Sasson noted that bringing privacy to Bitcoin was the original intent behind the Zerocash paper. While he has not reviewed the new proposal in detail, he supports the broader goal of implementing zero-knowledge scalability and privacy on the Bitcoin network.
Regarding Zcash, Ben-Sasson maintains his year-end price target of $5,000 for ZEC. The token currently trades at $1,545.89, reflecting a 291% gain over the last 90 days. ZEC is now the ninth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. To reach the projected target, the asset would need to increase by approximately 223% from its current valuation.
Market activity for Zcash has intensified in September. Spot funds recorded inflows of $98.2 million in the week ending September 18, the highest among 14 monitored crypto products. Additionally, Ledger integrated private Zcash balances into its desktop application. Recent price volatility resulted in a single short position liquidation that incurred a loss of $10.68 million.
