Starknet has launched Shadow Accounts, a privacy feature allowing users to interact with DeFi applications without linking on-chain actions to primary wallet addresses.
StarkWare, the team behind Starknet, said Shadow Accounts create separate, persistent addresses for individual applications. Users fund these accounts using shielded balances held within the network's STRK20 privacy pool, enabling them to maintain lending, trading, or other positions under distinct on-chain identities.
The feature obscures the connection between a shadow account and the wallet that funds it. Balances, transactions, and positions associated with these accounts remain publicly visible on-chain.
Once integrated into a DeFi application, users can connect their wallets and switch to private mode, deposit assets into a vault, and maintain positions until withdrawing funds back into a shielded balance.
StarkWare indicated the functionality could eventually extend to liquidity provision, lending, borrowing, staking, derivatives trading, prediction markets, and NFT marketplaces.
The launch follows StarkWare's June introduction of its STRK20 privacy framework, which facilitates private transfers and shielded token balances across Starknet. The same month, StarkWare demonstrated a Private Know Your Customer system that allows users to verify personal information without revealing full identity documents.
