According to CoinDesk, Nocturne Labs, the company behind the privacy on-chain accounts protocol Nocturne, has raised $6 million in a seed funding round. The round was co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital, with participation from other prominent investors in the Ethereum ecosystem, such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Bankless Ventures, HackVC, and Robot Ventures. The funds will be used to continue the development of the blockchain and pay legal bills, according to Luke Tchang, the co-founder and CEO of Nocturne Labs.

The Nocturne protocol is expected to launch in the second half of November, combining blockchain technologies like zero-knowledge proofs, account abstractions, and stealth addresses to bring private accounts to public blockchain. The accounts will function like conventional Ethereum accounts but with built-in asset privacy. Nocturne could compete with other privacy-focused protocols such as Aztec or Railgun, Tchang said. He also emphasized the importance of working with regulators and finding a way to implement privacy in a compliant manner. "Having privacy is not an impossible thing to ask for," Tchang told CoinDesk.