Researchers have proposed a new privacy system that would allow Bitcoin-denominated value to move through encrypted transfers anchored directly to Bitcoin without requiring a soft fork or separate blockchain. The September 24 Shielded Bitcoin paper, authored by Clara Shikhelman, Mikhail Komarov and Aleksei Moskvin of [[alloc] init], describes a metaprotocol where amounts, senders, recipients and links to previously spent notes remain hidden while transaction validity can still be independently verified.