Starknet launched Shadow Accounts on Oct. 14, a privacy feature enabling users to interact with decentralized finance applications without publicly linking activity to their primary wallets.
Shadow Accounts create separate, persistent addresses tied to individual applications. Users fund these accounts by drawing shielded balances from Starknet's STRK20 privacy pool. The mechanism obscures the connection between a shadow account and its funding wallet, though all balances, transactions, and positions remain publicly visible onchain.
In a DeFi application, users connect their wallet and toggle to private mode, then deposit assets into a vault. Funds remain in the shadow account until withdrawn back into shielded balance.
StarkWare said Shadow Accounts could expand beyond vaults to liquidity provision, lending, borrowing, staking, derivatives trading, prediction markets, and NFT marketplaces.
The launch extends StarkWare's privacy roadmap. In June, the company introduced the STRK20 framework, enabling private transfers and shielded token balances on Starknet. That same month, StarkWare demonstrated a Private KYC system allowing users to verify identity without exposing full documents.
Shadow Accounts, STRK20, and Private KYC form the foundation of StarkWare's privacy infrastructure for the ecosystem.
