Acquisition
Mar 2025Coinbase/Base acquired the Iron Fish development team to build privacy features on Base; the blockchain and token remained with the independent Iron Fish Foundation.
SourceCompany research
Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Updated Jul 29, 2026
Overview
Iron Fish is a privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain and ecosystem for private crypto transfers; its development team joined Base/Coinbase in 2025 while the independent Iron Fish Foundation continued maintaining the network in 2026.
Primary product
A zero-knowledge Layer 1 blockchain for private, optionally compliant digital-asset transfers and multi-asset shielded transactions.
Founded
2019
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, United States
Team size
1-10
Work style
Remote
Industry
Cryptocurrency
Sub-industry
Layer 1 blockchain / privacy infrastructure
Offices
San Francisco, California, United States
Business model
open-source protocol/network
network transaction fees in $IRON
tokenomics-driven ecosystem
Funding
People & investors
Investors
Work & culture
Open-source, community-focused, privacy-first, and builder-heavy; public writing emphasizes curiosity, kindness, teaching, learning, and strong community participation.
Work style
Remote
Compensation
Public engineering job listings were SF/Remote and third-party scrapes showed estimated historical pay bands of roughly $36k-$84k for software roles; no official salary bands or visa policy were publicly stated.
Product & market
Pricing
Network fees denominated in $IRON; no public SaaS-style pricing model found.
Differentiators
- —Optional privacy on a PoW Layer 1 chain
- —Multi-Asset Shielded Pool for private multi-asset transfers
- —View keys for selective disclosure and compliance
- —ChainPort integrations across 20+ EVM chains
- —Desktop and mobile wallet ecosystem
- —Sanctions screening on bridge flows
Technology
Rust
TypeScript
JavaScript
Scale & contact
Estimated revenue
$1M-$10M
Estimated monthly visits
106K
Traffic estimate as of Jun 2026
Signals & risks
Other
Apr 2026The Iron Fish Foundation moved to maintenance mode, stopped future grants, and said it would not renew existing ones while continuing limited infrastructure support.
SourceLatest news
Iron Fish Blog · Apr 2026
The Foundation said it was moving to maintenance mode, ending future grants and closing Discord while still supporting limited infrastructure such as bootstrap nodes, the explorer, and the website.
Iron Fish Blog · Oct 2025
Iron Fish announced SuiFish and an expansion of its privacy engine to additional chains, framing it as Iron Fish v2 and a broader move toward chain-level privacy.
Iron Fish Blog · Mar 2025
Iron Fish launched a TestFlight mobile app for private stablecoin transfers and emphasized private USDC flows, sanctions screening, and a Venmo-like user experience.
CoinDesk · Mar 2025
CoinDesk reported that Coinbase acquired Iron Fish's team, not the chain or token, and that Elena Nadolinski would remain on the Foundation board.
Open Positions
45 jobs at Iron Fish
HVAC Technician - Phoenix
RemoteLessen DirectScottsdale, AZ1d ago
Remote