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Points of Focus
- Citrea acquired Crest to add zero-knowledge privacy features and private BTC transfers to its Bitcoin application layer.
- Crest founder Meliksah Gurtemel will join Citrea as product lead ahead of the wallet’s mobile launch, which is expected in the coming weeks.
- The wallet will support private cross-chain swaps, allowing users to pay with BTC, while recipients on EVM networks receive USDC or ETH.
Citrea has acquired Crest, a self-custodial private Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, adding privacy-focused transfers and cross-chain payments to its Bitcoin application layer.
Crest founder Meliksah Gurtemel will join Citrea as product lead.
The mobile wallet is due to launch in the coming weeks with automatic shielding, private BTC transfers, and cross-chain onboarding from Bitcoin and Ethereum.
It will also support private cross-chain swaps, allowing a user to start with BTC and pay an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) address that receives USDC (USDC) or Ether (ETH).
“Citrea’s acquisition of Crest is a step in the direction of what we’ve always believed: a programmable Bitcoin layer and a bustling ecosystem where BTC is more than its price,” Orkun Mahir Kılıç, co-founder and CEO of Chainway Labs — a core contributor to Citrea — said in comments provided to AlphaWire ahead of the announcement.
Kılıç tied privacy to broader institutional adoption, arguing that bringing more capital onchain will require protecting balances and transaction histories while preserving self-custody and avoiding specialist-only workflows. He said making Bitcoin private, simple, and practical is central to Citrea’s effort to drive adoption.
Crest will bring zero-knowledge privacy pools to Bitcoin
Crest is a private Bitcoin mobile wallet built around zero-knowledge privacy pools on Citrea. Its planned product combines automatic shielding, BTC transfers, cross-chain payments, and a mobile interface designed to reduce the technical friction of existing privacy tools.
That setup clarifies the scope of Citrea’s claim that Crest will bring “Zcash-style privacy” to Bitcoin. Shielded activity runs through Citrea’s execution environment, while transactions recorded on Bitcoin layer 1 remain part of Bitcoin’s public ledger.
Citrea launched its mainnet on Jan. 27 as an EVM-compatible execution layer using Bitcoin for data availability and settlement. Its Clementine bridge moves BTC between Bitcoin and Citrea, where bridged funds are represented as cBTC.
The acquisition announcement does not identify the proving system behind Crest’s zero-knowledge pools or specify which metadata remain visible when funds enter or exit them. Those details become particularly relevant when a payment moves across Bitcoin L1, Citrea, and another EVM network.
Zama offers one recent example of privacy infrastructure moving into existing decentralized finance products. The project this month launched confidential swaps and expanded confidential access to 16 Morpho vaults, including WBTC products, using encrypted balances and transaction details.
Crest plans BTC-to-USDC and ETH payments
Crest’s cross-chain swaps extend the product beyond shielded BTC transfers. Under the planned flow, a user can initiate a payment in BTC while an EVM recipient receives USDC or ETH privately.
Citrea has yet to explain where the asset conversion occurs, which venues provide liquidity, or how the transaction is routed. That flow involves shielding, moving value between environments, converting assets, and settling the recipient’s payment. Crest is packaging automatic shielding and cross-chain onboarding into the same mobile wallet.
The acquisition brings Crest’s product development directly into Citrea. Gurtemel’s appointment as product lead ties the wallet more closely to the network’s broader work on privacy, payments, and Bitcoin capital markets. Citrea has positioned Crest as a gateway for users and liquidity moving from Bitcoin and privacy ecosystems into the network.
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