gm, readers.

At Automata we work on protecting privacy and fairness. And in this newsletter, we find more reasons to talk about it. Explore headlines and catch up on the biggest crypto news in Web3 privacy.

This Week:

• FTX bankruptcy claims agent Kroll compromises non-sensitive user data

• friend.tech rejects reports of leaked user information

• Terra warns users of a malicious phishing site compromising their official website

• Anonymity-focused ATOR Protocol enters testnet phase

• Coinbase-backed group loses lawsuit against U.S. Treasury over last year’s Tornado Cash sanctions

Zooming into ZK:

• KyberSwap integrates Polygon zkEVM

• Scroll enters Beta phase with launch of Sepolia testnet

• Binance Labs invests in zkWASM infrastructure provider Delphinus Lab

Op-Ed Feature:

• Medium writer Stanley Thomas shares about privacy and engagement in the landscape of Web3 social media

We dive into the details, so you don’t have to:

friend.tech continues to flood CT even this week, contributing massively to the success of Coinbase’s L2, Base. The Paradigm-backed Web3 social app ranked 3rd in 24h fees earlier this week, just behind Lido and Ethereum. Amidst its success, a report by The Block claiming that there has been a “leaked database of 101,000 friend.tech users” deepened the crypto community’s frustration towards the app’s lack of privacy protection, as highlighted in our previous issue. friend.tech called out the report for factual inaccuracy, stating that the information was public and scraped from their API rather than being “leaked”. This was also supported by X’s community notes for The Block’s associated post. As a privacy precaution, multiple KOLs have encouraged users to revoke friend.tech’s access to their X accounts which is automatically approved when signing in to the app.

Texas federal court judge has ruled in favor of the United States Department of the Treasury, rejecting a lawsuit brought forth by six individuals backed by Coinbase who claimed that the US Treasury Department overstepped its authority when sanctioning Tornado Cash last year. A few days after this ruling, Tornado Cash co-founders, Roman Semenov and Roman Storm, were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, sanctions violations, and to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Tornado Cash is a cryptocurrency mixer, a decentralized privacy solution designed to enhance the privacy and anonymity of crypto transactions. Principally, this ruling entails that Judge Pitman has classified DAOs as legal entities which could have dramatic ramifications for the blockchain ecosystem. This isn’t the first time a DAO was ruled as an association in the eyes of the law. Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal reacted to the ruling, maintaining Coinbase’s continued support to the appeal.

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This newsletter is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional financial advice or interpreted as investment advice. Cryptocurrencies are volatile assets and you should always do your own research before making any informed decisions when investing or trading.