# Privacy Pools

> Privacy Pools: Compliant privacy pool. Technology: zero-knowledge proofs.

Part of the Soda Labs Privacy Hub, a neutral directory of the on-chain privacy
landscape: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub

## Key facts

- Entry type: Privacy project
- Category: Compliant privacy pool
- Technology: Zero-knowledge proofs (ZK)
- Website: https://privacypools.com
- Tags: ZK, shielded pool, compliance
- Canonical page: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/privacy-pools

## Overview

Privacy Pools implements one of the most consequential ideas in the field: association-set proofs, from a paper co-authored by Vitalik Buterin. They let an honest user prove their deposit belongs to a set that excludes illicit funds without revealing which deposit is theirs. It is the clearest answer anyone has offered to the question of how a shielded pool stays compliant without a backdoor, it carries Ethereum Foundation integration, and a year in it holds about six million dollars across some 1,500 users. Membership of the association set is currently determined by one screening provider, which can also revoke it, so that provider sits in the trust model alongside the cryptography.

## About Zero-knowledge proofs

One party proves a statement about hidden data is true without revealing the data the statement is about. Compared side by side with the other approaches at https://www.sodalabs.xyz/taxonomy.

## Sources

- [The paper](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4563364)
- [0xbow, the implementation](https://0xbow.io)
- [Seed round coverage](https://www.theblock.co/post/379395/0xbow-raises-3-5-million-seed-round-ethereum-foundation-backed-privacy-pools)

## Related entries

- [Namada](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/namada): Multi-asset shielded L1
- [Panther Protocol](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/panther): Compliant private DeFi
- [Railgun](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/railgun): Private DeFi protocol
- [Aleo](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/aleo): Privacy L1
- [Aztec](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/aztec): Privacy L2
- [Hinkal](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/hinkal): Private DeFi layer