Ekubo enables private swaps on Starknet for shielded tokens

Ekubo, the dominant automated market maker on Starknet, has added support for private swaps of shielded tokens, letting traders execute transactions without linking their identity or wallet history to the trade. The feature builds on Starknet’s STRK20 privacy framework and routes through a specialized intermediary called the ShieldedSwapRouter. For a protocol that already controls roughly 60% of AMM total value locked on Starknet, the addition of on-chain privacy is a meaningful expansion of what concentrated liquidity DEXs can offer. How the privacy layer actually works Zero-knowledge proofs and Merkle proofs work together to confirm that a user has valid funds and authorization to trade, without ever broadcasting who that user is. Practically, the flow works like this: a user’s shielded token balance sits inside a privacy contract, the ShieldedSwapRouter constructs the necessary proofs, and then it hooks into Ekubo’s existing ILocker callback interface to execute the swap inside a standard liquidity pool. The pool itself sees a normal trade. The identity of the person behind it stays hidden. One important caveat: swap amounts and price impacts remain visible on-chain. Privacy her...