Bitcoin holders can now hide more of their activity, but only by trusting new middlemen

Starknet launched strkBTC on May 12, locking BTC on Bitcoin’s base layer to back an ERC-20 token that brings shielded balances into a smart contract environment at scale. The token runs in the public mode, where it behaves like any other wrapped Bitcoin asset, and shielded mode, where users can hide selected balances and transfers from outside observers. Starknet routes viewing keys to an independent third-party audi…