Unchained Podcast Ep. 945 — Why the Privacy Coins Mania Is Much More Than Price Action

Host: Laura Shin
Guests: Josh Swihart (CEO, Electric Coin Company—Zcash), Harry Halpin (CEO, Nym Technologies)
Date: November 14, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode delves deep into the recent surge of interest in privacy coins like Zcash and Monero, examining the underlying drivers beyond mere price speculation. Laura is joined by two leading privacy-tech builders — Josh Swihart of Zcash and Harry Halpin of Nym Technologies. Together, they explore the evolving attitudes towards privacy, the technical innovations driving the new wave of adoption, and the broader geopolitical and societal implications of truly private digital assets and communications.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why the Sudden Privacy Coin Renaissance?

• Narrative Shift & Geopolitical Factors

  • Josh Swihart attributes the surge to increased governmental overreach (UK, EU, Canada) and rising geopolitical fears, making users more privacy conscious.

    “We've seen it with Canadian truckers... an increasing amount of attention... has actually been building for some time... There's also this broader geopolitical stuff — greater divisiveness, concerns about political concerns and things like that.” — Josh Swihart [04:13]

• Usability & Adoption Progress

  • Early privacy coins were hard to use, but innovation (like easy wallets and swaps) has led to exponential growth in Zcash’s shielded pool.

    "We've worked really hard to make it accessible to normies to be able to shield their wealth... the growth of the shielded pool... just went absolutely parabolic." — Josh Swihart [05:24]

• Reflexive Growth

  • Price action brings attention, leading users to “go down the rabbit hole,” increasing actual adoption, which further impacts price.

2. Privacy as a Fundamental Need

• Cypherpunk Roots & Surveillance

  • Harry Halpin points out privacy was a founding ideal in crypto, but transparency in Bitcoin is a vulnerability in a world of powerful surveillance tools (e.g., Chainalysis).

    "Privacy was part of the original ideals that motivated Satoshi Nakamoto... In a world of massive surveillance... I would obviously choose [privacy coins] over Bitcoin." — Harry Halpin [06:47]

• Why Users Don’t Care—Or Do They?

  • Most people have a “natural” expectation of privacy, but don’t realize how exposed their financial data is, both with credit cards and blockchains.

    "I think if the credit card companies... were very transparent about who can see what, it would actually freak people out, and they would care.” — Josh Swihart [11:05]

• When Privacy Matters—Personal Stories

  • Both Josh and Harry entered privacy tech after seeing the dangers of mass data collection, both socially (ad tech, Cambridge Analytica), and geopolitically (revolutions, government crackdown).

    "We could aggregate all of this social media data... and... map it to their crypto bank account. And then what can I do?" — Josh Swihart [13:16]
    "Friends of mine... the Syrian government tracked them down because of their communication patterns and put them in jail and murdered them." — Harry Halpin [15:39]

3. Technical Primer: Privacy Technologies in Crypto

• Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs)

  • Math that allows proof of something (like age for alcohol purchase) without revealing the underlying data — foundational to Zcash.

    “Zero knowledge proofs... allow you to prove that something is true without disclosing any information about that fact.” — Josh Swihart [18:16]

• Ring Signatures

  • Used in Monero; makes transactions private among a finite group (the “ring”). Less scalable than ZKPs.

    “Ring signatures... are only private among the size of the ring... Known as a not as good design.” — Harry Halpin [19:42]

• Other Methods

  • Homomorphic encryption (slow, still maturing), Trusted Enclaves (hardware-based, trust issues), Secure Multi-Party Compute.
  • Bottom line: “If you just want to rely on pure math... zero knowledge proofs are the way to go.” — Harry Halpin [22:36]

  Memorable Moment:

  "I did a transaction with Amir Taki... had to like handcraft some JSON... we were just like terrified it wasn’t going to work. It did work, but was very slow back then. Now, it's much easier." — Harry Halpin [22:44]

4. Project Deep Dives

Zcash (Josh Swihart)

• Origins & Vision

  • Fork of Bitcoin, swapping in zero-knowledge proofs for privacy. Trusted, simple design — “encrypted Bitcoin”.

    “Underneath it all, it's encrypted bitcoin. Like it's 21 million cap. It's got the same properties as Bitcoin, but you have this added privacy layer and people can really understand that.” — Josh Swihart [25:33]

• Adoption Metrics

  • Rapid growth of “shielded” ZEC (private transactions); current shielded pool is ~30% of supply—up from 10% a year ago.

    “The amount of transactions specifically shielding and unshielding has grown massively... It went from 1.5 million, a year and a half ago to 5 million today.” — Josh Swihart [29:07]

• Merchant Use & Tech Innovations

  • “Cross Pay” allows ZEC holders to pay merchants in any supported crypto, preserving sender privacy.

    "I get to stay private with Zec, but they get the Bitcoin they want." — Josh Swihart [27:43]

• Exchange Support and Regulatory Challenges

  • Gemini is the only major exchange supporting shielded withdrawals. Most others lag due to technology/compliance inertia.

    "It's kind of a mix of compliance teams ticking boxes and not wanting to do due diligence...unless there's a commercial demand...they're just not going to do it." — Josh Swihart [33:37]

• Privacy & Compliance are Compatible

  • Shielded withdrawals protect users, but exchanges remain compliant (as per US law, e.g., KYC, SARs).

    “If the government comes with a warrant... they can get the information about the user... but with transparent chains, law enforcement doesn't have to go through the legal process...users just saying, well, I don't care about this notion of unreasonable search and seizure. I'm just going to make this available to you all the time.” — Josh Swihart [34:38]

• Business, Institutional & National Security Use Cases

  • Businesses don’t want public balance sheets; privacy is essential for commercial and national security.

    “It's a national security problem having transparent ledgers... if crypto goes mainstream.” — Josh Swihart [39:37]

Nym (Harry Halpin)

• Beyond Blockchain: Privacy at the Network Level

  • Nym is a decentralized “Mixnet” (network-level privacy) that scrambles internet packets, making both sender/receiver unlinkable—even to powerful state actors.

    “We built Nym... makes your packets private and anonymous, unlinkable to who sent who, sender and receiver by default...against an adversary that's watching the entire Internet.” — Harry Halpin [41:16]

• VPNs Are Not Enough

  • Centralized VPNs require trust and reveal payment/usage data; Nym uses tokens and zero-knowledge proofs for both network access and payment privacy.

    “That's crazy. So what centralized VPNs do is actually I think pretty dangerous. What a decentralized VPN and mixnet like Nym does, we say we will split that traffic up into multiple groups and... we give you a zero knowledge proof back.” — Harry Halpin [48:52]

• How Nym Handles Payments

  • End-users pay with shielded ZEC, BTC, or even credit cards; Nym converts to its own token for network operation, keeping payments unlinkable from use.

    "When you pay us, we give you a zero knowledge proof back... proof that you've paid... tried really hard to make all this invisible to the user." — Harry Halpin [50:53]

5. Zcash Technical Roadmap & Privacy Ecosystem

• Key Upcoming Developments
  • ZSA — Shielded tokens, similar to ERC-20s, but private by default.
  • Tachyon — Makes shielded transactions fast and scalable for “billions” of users (addresses legacy performance limits).

    “Tachyon... figured out how to get zcash to scale to billions of people... sending small, big, doesn't matter.” — Josh Swihart [53:06]

  • Easier UX — Removing seed phrases, simplifying addresses.
  • Ecosystem Growth — Multiple independent teams building (Kedit, Shielded Labs, Zcash Foundation, others).

    “This ecosystem is growing and it's growing really, really quickly.” — Josh Swihart [56:45]

6. Privacy Goes Mainstream? Competition Ahead

• Ethereum, Bitcoin & the "Privacy Cluster"

  • Ethereum is building a new team for privacy-as-default (“Privacy Cluster”). Many believe privacy should be built into major chains, rather than bolt-ons like Tornado Cash.

    “There's users in these ecosystems that feel like privacy should just come to their chain and they shouldn't have to go elsewhere for it.” — Laura Shin [57:20]

• Skepticism from Broader Crypto Community

  • Some users downplay privacy coins: “What the fuck you got to do with your zcash, bro? Shield it and buy drugs?... Drug dealers don't even want zcash, dude.” [57:52]
  • Tornado Cash and similar tools on Ethereum offer some privacy, but lack the technical robustness and usability of shielded default coins, per guests.

• Why Zcash Still Leads

  • Coding bulletproof privacy is hard: only a handful of teams can do it reliably and securely; Zcash has the cred, code, and community.

    “Maybe 50 max on [the] planet [can write these proofs], and I would say like half of those work at zcash.” — Harry Halpin [59:15]

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Digital Surveillance as the Norm

  “It’s actually not natural to have everything completely public. This is a freak side effect of the digital age that’s being weaponized and used against us.” — Harry Halpin [10:06]

• On National Security

  “All US citizens’ balances and transactions on a public ledger... is a national security problem... But it’s only a problem if crypto goes mainstream, and we don’t intend for crypto to go mainstream.” — Josh Swihart, quoting a Treasury official [39:37]

• On the Technical Barriers

  "You have world-class engineers...world-class cryptographers, but very few who are both. That's part of the talent scarcity." — Josh Swihart [63:17]

• On the Future

  “You have today strong privacy guarantees with zcash that you just don't have anywhere else.” — Josh Swihart [65:45]

Notable Timestamps

• [04:13] — Why privacy coins are surging
• [10:00] — The "natural" expectation of privacy vs. digital age reality
• [15:39] — Personal stories of how guests got into privacy (revolutions, surveillance)
• [18:16] — Simple explanation of zero-knowledge proofs
• [22:44] — Early struggles with Zcash tech
• [25:33] — What actually makes Zcash unique
• [29:07] — Growth data for shielded pool
• [34:38] — How exchanges can comply without sacrificing privacy
• [39:37/40:32] — National security angle
• [41:16] — How Nym’s mixnet works in practice
• [48:52] — Dangers of centralized VPNs and how Nym’s payment privacy works
• [53:06] — Benefits and roadmap for Zcash advancements
• [57:20] — Big blockchains and the demand for built-in privacy
• [65:45] — Why Zcash remains ahead for privacy guarantees

Closing Thoughts

This episode makes clear that the privacy coin revival is rooted in much more than price speculation, driven by societal, political, and technical currents. Zcash and projects like Nym aren’t merely “tools for criminals,” but answer a fundamental, widening need for privacy in a surveillance-saturated world. As mainstream chains move toward privacy (slowly, given high technical barriers), purpose-built projects with veteran teams and maturing code continue to pioneer what’s possible.

“It's not just about hiding from governments — it's about every person’s right to not put their entire financial life on global display, and giving individuals, companies, and even governments tools for real digital self-defense.” — [Show summary, inspired by guests]