A common question we hear about Nocturne is why the protocol was designed as a “private account.” Why not another design? In this post, we distill past approaches to onchain privacy and the motivation behind the Nocturne design philosophy.Setting the StageTo understand the motivation behind private accounts, we need to look to the past. There have been 2 major types of onchain privacy products we’ve seen so far—alternative L1/L2s and mixers. Both categories garnered significant interest but h...

A common question we hear about Nocturne is why the protocol was designed as a “private account.” Why not another design? In this post, we distill past approaches to onchain privacy and the motivation behind the Nocturne design philosophy.Setting the StageTo understand the motivation behind private accounts, we need to look to the past. There have been 2 major types of onchain privacy products we’ve seen so far—alternative L1/L2s and mixers. Both categories garnered significant interest but h...