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Transparent vs. shielded addresses

Swapping into a privacy coin doesn’t make you private by itself. With coins like Zcash and PIVX, swap services send to a public address. The privacy comes from what you do next.

By Hamish Webb · Last reviewed 30 September 2026

Two kinds of address

Zcash and PIVX each have two kinds of address. They behave very differently.

  • Transparent Zcash addresses starting with t1 or t3, and PIVX addresses starting with D. These work like Bitcoin: the addresses and amounts are visible to anyone on the blockchain. Zcash’s own documentation says they “do not offer privacy for users.”
  • Shielded Zcash addresses starting with zs, or unified addresses starting with u1, and PIVX addresses starting with ps. A transaction between two shielded addresses hides the addresses, the amount and the memo.

Why swaps use transparent addresses

Swap services and exchanges run anti-money-laundering checks on incoming funds, and those checks need to see where the funds came from. A shielded deposit hides exactly that. Pressure from exchanges has been strong enough to shape Zcash itself: after Binance began requiring fully transparent deposits, Zcash introduced a new address type, the TEX address, which only accepts funds from transparent addresses.

We checked the swap providers WalletExchange works with on 30 September 2026. For Zcash, they accept only transparent t-addresses (one also accepts TEX). For PIVX, they accept only transparent D-addresses, and StealthEX states that deposits from private addresses are not accepted. In practice, the swap itself happens in public.

Getting privacy after a swap

  • 1. Use a wallet that supports shielded addresses Not every wallet does. Check before you swap, not after.
  • 2. Receive the swap at your wallet’s transparent address That’s the address the swap provider will accept. This step is visible on the blockchain.
  • 3. Shield the funds Send them from your transparent address to your own shielded address. The sending side is public, including the amount, but the destination is hidden.
  • 4. Transact from shielded addresses Payments between shielded addresses keep the addresses and amounts private.
  • 5. Know that leaving is visible too Moving funds back to a transparent address, for example to swap out again, “de-shields” them, and that transaction is public.

Don’t make the link easy

Shielding hides where your funds go, not the fact that you shielded. If you shield exactly the amount you received from a swap, then de-shield the same amount minutes later, the matching amounts and timing make the two easy to connect. Leaving funds shielded for a while, and avoiding identical round amounts in and out, keeps the trail far weaker.

Not every privacy coin works this way

  • Monero (XMR) Private by default. There’s no transparent option: every Monero transaction hides the sender, receiver and amount, so the address you give a swap provider is a normal Monero address.
  • Dash (DASH) Transparent by default, with optional mixing, called CoinJoin, in the Dash wallet. Like shielding, it’s something you do in your own wallet after the swap.
  • Zcash (ZEC) and PIVX Optional privacy through shielded addresses, as described above.

How WalletExchange handles it

WalletExchange lists Monero, Dash, Zcash, PIVX and Verge. For Zcash and PIVX, the exchange tool asks for a transparent address (starting with t1 or t3 for Zcash, or D for PIVX), because that’s what the providers accept. If you paste a shielded address, it tells you why it can’t be used and what to do instead, rather than just rejecting it. For every coin it lists, it checks the address against the right format for its network before an exchange is created.

Compare current rates for BTC to ZEC, ZEC to BTC and ZEC to XMR.

Privacy is also about what you share with services, not just what’s on the blockchain. See What is conditional KYC? and What does non-custodial mean?

Sources

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