2
Apr, 2025
EY updates privacy L2 as nixed Tornado Cash sanctions ease fears
Altcoin News, Bitcoin News, Crypto Analytics, Crypto Industries & Currency Updates
Big Four accounting firm EY, formerly Ernst & Young, has changed its enterprise-focused Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Nightfall to a zero-knowledge rollup design as it says corporate clients are more comfortable with privacy solutions with easing US sanctions.
EY said in an April 2 announcement that Nightfall’s new source code, “Nightfall_4,” simplifies the network’s architecture and offers near-instant transaction finality on Ethereum while making it more accessible to users than its previous optimistic rollup-based version.
EY’s global blockchain leader, Paul Brody, told Cointelegraph that switching to a ZK-rollup model “means instant finality, but it also makes operations simpler since you don’t need a challenger node to secure the network,” which verifies the correctness of transactions.
The move away from optimistic rollups means Nightfall users won’t need to challenge potentially incorrect transactions on Ethereum and wait out the challenging period, leading to faster transaction finality.
No such feature is present with zero-knowledge rollups, meaning that a transaction becomes final as soon as it is added into a Nightfall block, EY said.
It is the fourth major update to Nightfall since EY launched the business-focused Ethereum layer 2 in 2019.
Nightfall enables the firm’s business partners to transfer tokens privately using Ethereum’s security while being cheaper than the base network. It also uses a technology that binds a verified identity to a public key through digital signatures to try to stem counterparty risk.
Nixed Tornado Cash sanctions “helped people feel comfortable”
Brody said the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions on the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash “had a chilling effect on legitimate business user interest.”
“Even though we long ago took steps to make Nightfall unattractive to bad actors, since it cannot be used anonymously, the removal of OFAC sanctions has really helped people feel comfortable that using a privacy technology will not be risky,” he added.
Nightfall’s code is open source on GitHub but remains a permissioned blockchain for EY’s customer base, competing with the likes of the IBM-backed Hyperledger Fabric, R3 Corda and the Consensus-built Quorum.
Brody said that EY’s blockchain team is working toward “a single environment that supports payments, logic, and composability.”
Currently, the firm requires Nightfall and Starlight, a tool that can change smart contract code to enable zero-knowledge proofs “to enable complex multiparty business agreements under privacy,” he added.
“We’ll spend some time supporting Nightfall_4 deployments initially,” Brody said. “Then we’ll move on to the development of Nightfall_5.”
Magazine: What are native rollups? Full guide to Ethereum’s latest innovation
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Learn MoreEY updates privacy L2 as nixed Tornado Cash sanctions ease fears
2
Apr, 2025
Bitcoin rally to $88.5K obliterates bears as spot volumes soar — Will a tariff war stop the party?
Altcoin News, Bitcoin News, Crypto Analytics, Crypto Industries & Currency Updates
Bitcoin price caught an unexpected bid by rallying to a session high at $88,500, but will the price gains be capped at a multimonth overhead resistance that is aligned with the 50-day moving average?
Key points:
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Bitcoin extended its April. 1 gains as news that the Trump administration had not finalized its “Liberation Day” tariffs emerged.
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Israel, Mexico and India have already rolled back their tariffs on US imports or suggested that they will not do “tit for tat” tariffs in response to the expected April 2 US tariffs.
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Bitcoin (BTC) trades slightly below a 3-month descending trendline resistance where the price has consistentlybeen rejected during past rallies.
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Total market liquidations over the past 12-hour trading period have reached $145 million, with $69.4 million of the figure being Bitcoin shorts.
Data from Kingfisher, CoinGlass and Velo show short liquidations playing a role in today’s push above $88,500.
Crypto market liquidations in the past 12-hours. Source. CoinGlass
For the past few months, Bitcoin price has struggled to hold the gains accrued from rallies driven by leverage. Looking beyond futures markets, there are some positives that suggest that the market structure is slowly transitioning from bearish to bullish.
As shown in the chart below, recent rallies were accompanied by a strong bid in the spot market and the return of the Coinbase Pro premium, leading some analysts to speculate buying from Strategy and other companies focused on building Bitcoin reserves.
Coinbase premium index. Source: CryptoQuant
Over the last two weeks, GameStop, MARA, Metaplanet and Strategy all announced plans to buy more Bitcoin, with GameStop being on the verge of purchasing and Strategy actively adding to its BTC position.
GameStop secures $1.5B for possible BTC purchase. Source: Arkham
In the short-term, sustained spot buy volume at Binance and Coinbase Pro, and the crypto and equities markets’ response to President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs are likely to be the most impactful factors that will influence the current bullish momentum seen in Bitcoin price.
Related: Bitcoin price on verge of breaking 10-week downtrend — Is $90K BTC next?
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
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