> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.alephzero.org/aleph-zero/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.alephzero.org/aleph-zero/protocol-details/shielder/overview.md).

# Overview

This documentation describes the shielder -- a modular shielded pool with the following characteristics:

* Supports depositing and withdrawing native and ERC20 tokens into a common shielded pool,
* Users within shielder have secret identifiers: ZK-IDs
* Supports an optional Registrar -- a party or set of parties responsible for registering new users in the shielder by whitelisting their ZK-IDs
* Supports an optional Anonymity Revoker -- a party or set of parties that have the power to deanonymize a particular user, given special circumstances.

In the subsequent pages we go step by step and describe these components in detail.


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