Eli Ben-Sasson

Bitcoin on Starknet Requires Real Privacy

Privacy matters: Does the Bitcoin economy on Starknet need privacy? Yes. Here's a real story: StarkWare has hundreds of employees and dozens of suppliers. Many of them are eager to Own their Lives, by putting much of their finances on Starknet rather than in Banks. And so, StarkWare employees are eligible to receive part of their salary as stablecoin on Starknet. As we started implementing this, my CFO comes to me saying there's a big problem here: Other employees, competitors, can use a browser to figure out stuff we prefer keeping private, like how much employees are being paid, so we need to find ways to shield this info. Eventually, we came up with various creative solutions to make these payments, without disclosing sensitive data. But it's quite elaborate. And it shouldn't be. That's why we need Privacy. So, if you're happy having others HODL your Bitcoin for you -- Strategy, ETFs, Binance, Coinbase and all, you may not care about privacy. But you're also not a true Bitcoiner, which means "not you keys, not your coins". If you're a degen playing with a bit of money on perps and all, you may not care. And you may be fine mixing your coins by going in and out of Binance and Coinbase from time to time. But if you believe that the end state is a decentralized Bitcoin Economy, true to Satoshi's goal of "allowing any two parties to transact with no trusted intermediary", and want this to apply to businesses and to your daily activity, then privacy matters.