Railgun’s transaction volume surpassed $1 billion as rival privacy protocols shut down or exit the market.<\/p>\n
Railgun, an on-chain privacy protocol, is enjoying strong adoption as rival crypto mixers cease operations, including attracting support from Vitalik Buterin,\u00a0Ethereum\u2019s\u00a0chief scientist.<\/p>\n
On May 22, Railgun garnered attention after Buterin\u00a0moved<\/a>\u00a080 ETH worth nearly $300,000 using the protocol. Data from Arkham Intelligence shows Buterin executing\u00a0transactions via Railgun\u00a0monthly<\/a> over the past six months, including a transfer of 100 ETH in April.<\/p>\n \u201cRailgun uses the privacy pools protocol, which makes\u00a0it much harder for bad actors to join the\u00a0pool without compromising\u00a0users\u2019\u00a0privacy,\u201d\u00a0Buterin\u00a0tweeted<\/a> at the time.\u00a0\u201cPrivacy is normal.\u201d<\/p>\n Buterin’s\u00a0adoption has shone a spotlight on Railgun, helping to\u00a0push its all-time transaction volume into ten figures. Railgun has processed $1.16 billion\u00a0worth of\u00a0transactions since the\u00a0protocol\u2019s\u00a0launch in January 2022, according to\u00a0Dune Analytics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Data from DefiLlama shows the\u00a0protocol\u2019s\u00a0total value locked (TVL) rising 146% to $76.2 million from $31 million in\u00a0mid-April,\u00a0and 460% from $13.6 million at the start of the year.<\/p>\n Railgun is a privacy protocol designed to obscure blockchain transactions, enabling users to conceal their wallet addresses. It leverages zero-knowledge succinct\u00a0non-interactive\u00a0arguments of knowledge (ZK SNARKs), a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology. ZKPs bolster privacy by allowing the verification of data on-chain without publicly revealing said data.<\/p>\n Railgun\u2019s\u00a0growing market share comes as many crypto mixing protocols are shutting down amid the sector facing a regulatory offensive from U.S. authorities.<\/p>\n In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury\u00a0sanctioned\u00a0<\/a>Tornado Cash,\u00a0then\u00a0the leading Ethereum privacy protocol,\u00a0prohibiting U.S. citizens from interacting with its smart contracts. The unprecedented move marked the first time\u00a0that code was placed\u00a0on the Office of Foreign Assets\u00a0Control\u2019s\u00a0(OFAC) list of Specially Designated Nationals.<\/p>\n The action came in response to the Lazarus Group, a North Korean state-sponsored hacking organization, using Tornado Cash to obscure the flow of stolen assets.<\/p>\n The sanctions led to a 64% drop in Tornado\u00a0Cash\u2019s\u00a0total value locked (TVL) from $460 million on August 8, 2022, to under $165 million six weeks later. However, Tornado Cash now appears to be doing just fine without U.S. users \u2014 currently boasting a $513 million TVL.<\/p>\n The U.S. Treasury has recently stepped up its actions against mixing protocols. In November,\u00a0the department\u00a0sanctioned<\/a>\u00a0Sinbad.io, a virtual currency mixer similarly implicated in laundering stolen assets for Lazarus Group.<\/p>\n Last month, the co-founders of Samourai Wallet, another cryptocurrency mixer service, were also\u00a0charged\u00a0<\/a>with facilitating money laundering and operating without a license. Sinbad was allegedly used to launder stolen assets from the bridge exploits targeting\u00a0Harmony<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Axie Infinity<\/a> carried out\u00a0by the North Korean hackers. Samourai\u00a0was also alleged\u00a0to have been used by cybercriminals for sanctions evasion, drug trafficking, and the procurement of child sexual abuse materials.<\/p>\n \u201cMixing services that enable criminal actors, such as the Lazarus Group, to launder stolen assets will face serious consequences,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo.<\/p>\n In response to the threat of regulatory action, Wasabi Wallet, a popular Bitcoin wallet,\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0it would no longer offer its Coinjoin feature, which provides privacy for on-chain transactions, starting in June. Wasabi also began blocking U.S. residents from accessing its services starting April 27.<\/p>\n Railgun\u00a0has also faced accusations of adoption from Lazarus Group.<\/p>\n In January 2023, security researcher ZachXBT\u00a0tweeted<\/a> that North\u00a0Korea\u2019s\u00a0Lazarus Group moved $63.5 million in assets stolen from the Harmony bridge using\u00a0Railgun,\u00a0before depositing the assets on three different exchanges.<\/p>\n But Railgun\u00a0refuted<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0ZachXBT\u2019s\u00a0claim in April.<\/p>\n “This is not true\u00a0and it’s\u00a0false reporting,\u201d\u00a0Railgun tweeted.\u00a0\u201cThat group is blocked from using the Railgun system by the\u00a0‘Private Proofs of\u00a0Innocence’\u00a0system\u00a0which\u00a0went live over a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lazarus Group is a notorious hacking collective believed to\u00a0be affiliated\u00a0with the North Korean government. The U.S. government has accused the group of conducting cyber operations to fund North\u00a0Korea’s\u00a0illicit weapons programs. Lazarus is allegedly responsible for numerous high-profile cyberattacks and cryptocurrency thefts, including the\u00a0infamous<\/a>\u00a0Sony Pictures hack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Railgun’s transaction volume surpassed $1 billion as rival privacy protocols shut down or exit the market. Railgun, an on-chain privacy protocol, is enjoying strong adoption as rival crypto mixers cease operations, including attracting support from Vitalik Buterin,\u00a0Ethereum\u2019s\u00a0chief scientist. On May 22, Railgun garnered attention after Buterin\u00a0moved\u00a080 ETH worth nearly $300,000 using the protocol. Data from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[274,273,272,244,266,271,268,270,269,267],"class_list":["post-308875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-de-fi","tag-crypto-finance","tag-decentralized-finance","tag-liquidity","tag-metamask","tag-pancake","tag-slippage","tag-sushiswap","tag-tronlink","tag-trust-wallet","tag-uniswap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308875"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308880,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308875\/revisions\/308880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Railgun rises as rival crypto mixers\u00a0fall<\/h2>\n
Lazarus moves to Railgun?<\/h2>\n