Base Acquiring Iron Fish Team: Scaling Privacy to Millions

Today I'm excited to share significant news about the future of Iron Fish and our continued mission to advance privacy in crypto: the Iron Fish team is joining Base to build privacy solutions to reach millions of users, while the Iron Fish Foundation will continue independently to support the Iron Fish network in its mission to be the largest safe cross-chain privacy pool.

After six years of developing cutting-edge privacy technology—from our PoW L1 with a multi-asset shielded pool powered by ZKPs to our bridge integrations across 27 chains—we're taking the next step in our mission to make privacy the standard in crypto, not the exception. This strategic move combines Iron Fish's expertise in building battle-tested privacy infrastructure with Base's rapidly growing ecosystem, accelerating our shared vision to increase economic freedom in the world by bringing private transactions to mainstream crypto adoption. For users and developers already building on Iron Fish, this means continued support through the Foundation, alongside new innovations of privacy at scale through the Base ecosystem.

The Iron Fish Journey 

When we started Iron Fish, we set out with a clear vision: to make web3 safe through privacy while deterring bad actors. We've remained obsessed with pushing privacy tech forward, and I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished.

We launched Iron Fish as an L1 PoW chain that stays true to the cypherpunk vision, where every transaction is completely encrypted and verified by zero-knowledge proofs. As the first privacy L1 to ship the Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (MASP) protocol in production, we built upon Zcash's Sapling protocol to create something truly innovative.

Our commitment to privacy extended to wallets as well, making us the first to implement private multi-sig wallets in production using FROST DKG, and the only project to support both private Ledger wallets and private multi-sig Ledger wallets. The community has been central to our development, exemplified when we implemented Fish Hash—a community-created custom hashing algorithm that's GPU friendly and ASIC resistant—through our first hardfork.

The connectivity of Iron Fish has grown impressively, now bridged to 27 transparent chains via ChainPort, with sanction screening on every transaction to deter bad actors. We've enabled private wrapped USDC from Base and are soon releasing a mobile app to unlock a truly private Venmo-like experience with crypto.

What's Next for Iron Fish and the Iron Fish Foundation? 

Privacy is a long game, and Iron Fish is here to stay. The Iron Fish Foundation remains independent and committed to supporting the Iron Fish network and its native token IRON. It will run leaner, more focused, and more connected to the Iron Fish community.

Going forward, the Foundation will concentrate on expanding support for more assets across many chains in its effort to bring privacy to every asset. The Foundation will also focus on tutorials, video walkthroughs on everything Iron Fish, demystifying zero-knowledge proofs and the math behind it, as well as a research center on privacy protocols across the ecosystem. It will continue ecosystem partnerships and maintain existing grants, the more significant ones being the ChainPort bridge partnership, as well as Oreowallet and Foxwallet. The Foundation will also revamp its grants program to instead support targeted initiatives to lead to a more focused, experimental approach to privacy innovation in crypto.

Why Base? A Win for Privacy 

Iron Fish has built the vital infrastructure to be a public good for crypto, providing strong privacy to assets across many chains. But our vision extends beyond what we've created so far.

Our passion has always been to unlock private crypto payments in a way that's accessible to millions of users, making a real impact and driving the crypto vision forward. To achieve this at scale, we believe joining forces with Base, the fastest growing chain, is incredibly bullish for crypto, privacy and building a privacy-enhanced future. When a major platform like Coinbase invests in privacy technology, it signals to the entire industry that privacy isn't a niche concern—it's fundamental infrastructure. In many ways this acquisition is a validation of the importance of privacy in crypto.

We believe Base is uniquely positioned to onboard the world to crypto, and we are incredibly excited to build out a privacy solution that can achieve real mass adoption, making private transactions the standard rather than the exception.

Coinbase's mission resonates deeply with our own: to increase economic freedom by building an open financial system that allows people to participate in the economy. We firmly believe that the only way to truly achieve this mission is through protecting user privacy onchain.

Looking Ahead 

We are so grateful for our amazing community whose passion and support have been the backbone of Iron Fish since the beginning. Your contributions have been invaluable, and I'm excited to see how the community will continue to drive Iron Fish forward.

The future is crypto, and crypto's future is private.

Join us for a community AMA on Monday March 10th where we'll discuss this transition in detail and address your questions. Follow @ironfishcrypto and @base on Twitter for the official announcement.

Stay tuned for more updates as we embark on this new chapter in our journey to make privacy the standard in crypto.

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