Ameen Soleimani of Privacy Pools | Unpacking Privacy Pools – Motivations, Mechanics, and Tradeoffs
Hashing It OutThe Hashing it Out team speaks with Ameen Soleimani, co-author of the Privacy Pools paper - Blockchain Privacy and Regulatory Compliance: Towards a Practical Equilibrium. Ameen, along with Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum Foundation), Jacob Illum (Chainalysis), Matthias Nadler (University of Basel), and Fabian Schär (Center for Innovative Finance, University of Basel; University of Basel - Economics Department) describe a novel smart contract-based privacy-enhancing protocol. Corey, D, and Jesse chat with Ameen about the motivations behind Privacy Pools, historical references including Tornado Cash and Z Cash, as well as the mechanics and tradeoffs associated with the approach.
Timestamps
00:00|Intro
05:00|Introducing Amen
06:30|Why dive into privacy now?
08:25|Corey’s interpretation and background to the Privacy Pools paper
11:35|Ameen's motivations for Privacy Pools - history of Ethereum, Coinbase, zk snarks, Z Cash
11:50|Tornado Cash compliance tool and enhancing the power of compliance
17:30|Is privacy all or nothing?
20:30|Mechanics of the privacy pool setup. Deposits, association sets, analysis
22:15|Week long dispute of proofs and tradeoffs
24:00|Versions of Privacy Pools, shielded pools, z-cash comparison
27:00|Maintaining decentralization while working in different jurisdictions
28:46|The consequences and challenges of building on open systems vs base layer privacy
32:15|Additional coordination complexity and anonymity sets
34:35|“Goblins” or small scale thefts and edge case hacks
39:15|Who will manage the burden of infrastructure? Wallets and important role of relayers.
46:40|Are Association Set Providers a new set of core users?
51:00|Narratives are powerful for positive use cases to prevail
51:58|Who is responsible for judging the association sets of the association set providers?
56:00|Privacy Pools is just better than the status quo
56:37|Open source developers working in the space with OFAC. Tornado Cash
1:02:40|Describe Privacy Pools in ten words or less
1:03:20|Is what you do difficult?
1:05:20|Roundtable with Corey, D, and Jesse