Private cross-chain swaps explained: coins, relays & what's actually hidden

"Private crypto swap" gets thrown around loosely, so let's be precise. There are three genuinely different ways to add privacy to a cross-chain swap, and they protect against different things.

The three approaches

• Privacy coins. Swap into an asset whose ledger hides balances by design — Zcash (ZEC) with its shielded pool is the classic example. Privacy lives in the destination asset, after the swap completes.
• Confidential settlement. The swap itself executes on a rail whose amounts and settlement details are not visible to public explorers — this is what CryptoRoute's private swaps do via the NEAR Intents confidential relay. Your deposit and payout are still normal public transactions on their chains; the middle leg is what's shielded.
• Mixers. Pooling funds to break the link between sender and receiver. We don't offer this: mixers carry serious regulatory and counterparty risk, and several have been sanctioned.

What confidential settlement does — and doesn't — hide

Hidden from public view: swap amounts, balances, and settlement details on the private rail. Not hidden: your origin-chain deposit, your destination-chain payout, and the rail operators' own view of transactions — a permissioned validator set can see them. This is shielding from public explorers, not cryptographic anonymity. Anyone who promises "anonymous swaps" is overclaiming.

Combining approaches

The strongest practical setup layers them: swap over the confidential relay into ZEC, then move the ZEC into a shielded address with your own wallet. Public explorers then see a deposit on the origin chain, and a transparent ZEC payout that you subsequently shield — with no public trail of the swap's internals in between.

Does privacy cost more?

On CryptoRoute the fee is the same 0.5% either way. Quotes for private swaps can differ slightly because confidential liquidity is provided by a dedicated set of market makers. No account is required for either mode.