[Bitcoin May Achieve Zcash-Style Privacy Transactions Without a Soft Fork, [alloc] init Team Builds 'Shielded Bitcoin'] According to a report by Unchained on September 25, [alloc] init founder Misha Komarov stated that his team is building 'shielded Bitcoin'—a privacy fund pool modeled after Zcash, operating on the existing Bitcoin network without requiring a soft fork or corporate operation. The solution, named Bitcoin PIPEs, uses witness encryption to lock a Bitcoin key, which can only be unlocked by proving compliance with the rules. The team released the second version of their research in February 2026. Komarov noted that each shielded transaction is approximately 700 vbytes (compared to 100–200 vbytes for regular transactions), with fees about four times higher than standard transactions, which he described as 'not catastrophic.' He emphasized that the more the system is used, the stronger the privacy becomes. However, he acknowledged that witness encryption is still in the experimental stage, and while related encrypted files have been compressed from around 300 TB last year to about 8 TB, they remain extremely large. The team plans to reuse auditable tools and conduct repeated audits. No launch timeline was provided, but Komarov urged users to participate in protocol design discussions as early as possible.