Citrea acquires privacy Bitcoin wallet Crest, driving mainstream adoption of BTC privacy transactions

According to PR Newswire, Bitcoin application layer platform Citrea has announced the acquisition of Crest, a self-custody private Bitcoin wallet. Backed by Founders Fund and Galaxy Ventures, Citrea states the acquisition aims to bring Zcash-style zero-knowledge privacy pools into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Crest founder Meliksah Gurtemel will join Citrea as head of product. Over the next few weeks, Crest will launch a Bitcoin mobile wallet supporting automatic shielding, private BTC transfers, and cross-chain private payments (enabling BTC to be privately swapped for USDC or ETH for payments to EVM addresses). Citrea co-founder and CEO Orkun Mahir Kılıç noted that addressing Bitcoin privacy represents the largest breakthrough for Bitcoin layers to meet genuine user demand, with Crest serving as the primary gateway for both users and liquidity flowing into Citrea.