Opinion: The U.S. Treasury's change in attitude may bring new opportunities for the crypto privacy sector

According to DL News, the U.S. Treasury Department has, for the first time in its latest congressional report, acknowledged that privacy tools such as token mixers can serve legitimate financial privacy purposes. The wording has softened significantly compared to previous statements and is seen as the latest signal of the Trump administration's ongoing easing of regulatory attitudes towards the cryptocurrency industry.

Jake Kennis, a senior research analyst at Nansen, pointed out that three forces—political tensions, tightening regulations, and the maturity of zero-knowledge (ZK) technology—are driving the privacy sector from a fringe speculative area into mainstream institutional themes. Currently, capital is accelerating towards compliant privacy projects such as Railgun, Nocturne, Zama, Aleo, and Nillion, covering scenarios like tokenization, payments, trade finance, and custody.

However, risks cannot be ignored: the Treasury report also disclosed that North Korean hackers laundered billions of dollars through mixers between 2024 and 2025; the European Union also plans to ban exchanges from listing privacy coins like Zcash and Monero by 2027. Meanwhile, developers of privacy tools such as Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet have faced legal prosecution in the U.S. and Europe, with compliance pressure in the industry continuing to rise.