Seven Web3 Firms Form Alliance Focusing on Data Privacy

Seven web3 companies have come together to form an alliance to focus on spreading awareness about the importance of data privacy.

Web3 companies, including p0xeidon labs, Nym Technologies, Secret Network from SCRT Labs, Orchid, Railgun, Status and Oasis Foundation’s Oasis Network, formed the Universal Privacy Alliance (UPA) after the US sanctions on coin mixer Tornado Cash.

According to the group's official statement, their aim is "to protect privacy regardless of the blockchain or technology stack."

They also said that the formation of the group is a positive step towards the foundation for privacy at the native level, thereby providing the security and democracy emerging technologies need to thrive.

Additionally, the group has also opened the UPA Legal Defense Fund. This fund has been created to defend the right to "experiment, build, and use full-stack privacy technologies."

In its statement, the UPA also added that "this move comes amidst a rising tide of censorship, suppression, and even criminalization of privacy technologies."

The UPA was unveiled by the organizers on October 11 at a side event during the Ethereum Foundation's Devcon conference in Bogota, Colombia.

Tornado Cash - one of the world's most popular crypto-mixing platforms - was sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department in early August.

The Treasury Department claimed that the platform has continued to facilitate money laundering for hacker groups like the North Korean government-sponsored Lazarus Group.

According to the sanctions, the crypto mixer has been barred by the government from offering any form of transaction to individuals in the United States. The mixer refers to a service that lets users deposit cryptocurrency and withdraw the same figure minus a fee in different tokens, obfuscating the tokens’ path in an industry where all transactions are recorded on the blockchain. 

The platform's assets that may be resident in the US or under the control of American citizens are also expected to be reported to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).