Researchers Propose 'Shielded Bitcoin' Protocol for On-chain Privacy

Research team [[alloc] init] released a paper on 'Shielded Bitcoin,' a meta-protocol designed to bring Zcash-style privacy features—such as encrypted notes and nullifiers—to the Bitcoin mainnet without requiring soft forks or sidechains. The proposal utilizes OP_RETURN for data publication. While the protocol aims to address growing demand for privacy, the authors noted that peg-in and peg-out mechanisms remain outside the scope of the current paper and represent significant technical challenges.