privacy

ChianCatcher news, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan stated during an interview on a blog program under Cypherpunk that cryptocurrency is not only a business matter but also an ideological one. The banking and political systems have failed and need to withdraw to self-sovereignty, and the missing part is privacy.He pointed out that the two major innovations of Bitcoin are programmability represented by Ethereum and privacy represented by Zcash. From 2009 to 2017, Bitcoin's viability was proven; from 2017 to 2025, programmability's viability will be proven; and now, from around 2025 to 2030, is the privacy phase. Privacy means using ZK encryption for everything, including ZKYC, ZK DEX, and ZK smart contracts, to achieve the minimum necessary information. This may require modifications to the base layer, new L1, or entirely new companies, and ZK can technically attract high-IQ talent like AI.

According to CoinDesk, the privacy blockchain project Miden plans to launch the privacy stablecoin USDCx, which is natively issued on the Miden network based on Circle's xReserve infrastructure, maintaining a 1:1 peg with USDC. When users hold and transfer USDCx, their balances, counterparties, or transaction histories will not be publicly exposed, but selective information disclosure will be supported for compliance needs.The stablecoin is expected to launch in sync with the Miden mainnet, which is targeted to start at the end of this month. Miden views USDCx as the foundation of its "PriFi" privacy finance direction, covering scenarios such as institutional trading, B2B payments, payroll management, and cross-border payments, aiming to address the pain points of achieving both transparency and compliance in institutional finance on public blockchains. Previously, in April last year, it was reported that Miden completed a $25 million seed round of financing, led by a16z Crypto along with Hack VC and 1kx.

Sui posted on platform X, stating that institutions will not choose to settle on infrastructure where competitors can see pricing and trading volume. The public amounts on most blockchains have been a barrier to actual commercial settlements.Mysten launched a new prototype that addresses the issue of amount privacy. This prototype is built on Seal MPC and confidential transfers.

Vitalik Buterin stated that he has compared the 2023 Ethereum roadmap with the current Strawmap, and while there is still a high degree of overlap in the overall direction, some priorities and technical paths have been clearly adjusted. This includes elevating the priority of quantum security, downplaying VDF and certain EVM improvements, and replacing old designs with unified binary trees, PBT, new state types, and other solutions.He pointed out that the most significant change in the current Strawmap is the emergence of several new topics not included in the 2023 roadmap, reflecting a shift in the focus of Ethereum's development. These new focal points include: stronger native privacy support, aggressive scaling in a post-quantum context, streamlined specifications for formal verification, Blob and Gas futures, native Rollup, and a more open design space around the future form of EVM.Vitalik also emphasized that Ethereum's scaling approach is shifting from "broadly scaling all activities" to "designing more easily scalable dedicated mechanisms for specific high-load scenarios," and views STARK proofs and AI-accelerated formal verification as important foundations for the protocol's future. Overall, this update indicates that the Ethereum roadmap is evolving towards quantum security, privacy-first, censorship resistance, high performance, and more simplified protocol design.

The latest software version 3.3.0 of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) introduces multiple upgrade proposals, among which the "Confidential Transfers" feature aims to provide higher privacy protection for institutional users, supporting the encryption of token balances and transfer amounts while maintaining visibility of account and token types. This feature is primarily targeted at Multi-Purpose Tokens (MPT) on the XRPL, with application scenarios including tokenized financial assets such as funds and bonds. Through cryptographic technologies like zero-knowledge proofs, the network can verify the validity of transactions without disclosing specific amounts.According to market news, the XRPL currently has approximately $1.38 billion in on-chain real-world assets (RWA), including about $845.7 million in RLUSD. In addition to RLUSD, there are over $530 million in tokenized assets on the XRPL, involving issuers such as Ondo, VERT Capital, Archax, and Société Générale. Besides Confidential Transfers, the XRPL 3.3.0 version also includes five proposals: Batch, Sponsor, Permission Delegation, and Dynamic MPT, which address institutional needs for batch transactions, fee payment, permission management, and dynamic adjustment of token attributes. However, these upgrades have not yet been officially launched and will need to gain over 80% support from trusted validation nodes on the XRPL for two consecutive weeks before activation. The market is paying attention to whether institutions like Aviva and Ondo, which have issued assets on the XRPL, will adopt this privacy feature.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that Signal recently announced it is exploring allowing users to register accounts without a phone number. He welcomed this move, believing it helps reduce reliance on the highly oligopolistic system of phone numbers, lowers the identity security risks associated with SIM card swaps, and makes it more difficult for governments to pressure Signal to ban users based on nationality.Vitalik also pointed out that while this initiative is better for privacy protection than the current situation, it only achieves "confidentiality" and does not reach true anonymity, as metadata such as message sending time, frequency, and recipients could still be used for identity correlation. He believes that with the development of artificial intelligence technology, long-lasting anonymous accounts are becoming outdated, and the only defensible form of privacy is "message-by-message uncorrelatable," meaning that no one other than the sender and receiver knows the identities of the communicating parties. This direction is currently being explored and advanced by new communication tools and mixing network projects such as Session and SimpleX. Additionally, protection against spam and denial-of-service attacks will become the next key issues to address.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a new article introducing a novel cryptographic obfuscation technology called Diamond iO. This technology aims to address the extremely low efficiency of traditional indistinguishable obfuscation schemes, allowing programs to run while hiding internal logic and critical data. Although traditional iO technology possesses strong privacy protection capabilities, its operational costs are prohibitively high, making it nearly impractical. Diamond iO, by adopting more aggressive new cryptographic assumptions, enhances computational efficiency from "universe-level time consumption" to "planet-level time consumption," bringing it closer to practical application.Diamond iO is built on technologies such as Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) and Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). By encrypting programs, it allows users to execute the encrypted programs and obtain correct outputs without being able to view the internal code or hidden keys. This solution introduces a new input encoding mechanism and conditional decryption method, reducing computational complexity while ensuring the program logic remains hidden. Its core application scenarios include protecting programs that contain private keys, enabling secure software licensing, constructing trustless cryptographic services, and supporting blockchain and artificial intelligence systems with stronger privacy protection.However, Diamond iO is still in the early research stage, and its security relies on new cryptographic assumptions, including All-Product LWE and Evasive LWE, which require further research validation. At the same time, the technology still faces efficiency challenges such as high computational overhead and circuit depth limitations. Researchers believe that by optimizing underlying hash functions, improving homomorphic encryption schemes, and reducing security parameter requirements, Diamond iO is expected to become an important direction for advancing practical program obfuscation technology in the future.

According to official social media news, Huobi HTX will hold a themed debate titled "The Life and Death of Privacy and Regulation: Will Privacy Coins Eventually Be Eliminated, or Will They Experience a Dark Explosion?" today at 8 PM. At that time, representatives from the affirmative side, including Yi Ge, Dog Treasure, Draco, and Qiang Ge, will engage in a heated exchange with representatives from the opposing side, DaDa, Sasaki Hoshino, Volcano Brother, and FomoDao, focusing on hot topics such as the future development of privacy coins, regulatory pressure, technological value, and market demand.

Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-8222 aims to separate staking deposits from withdrawals through a STARK-based cryptographic mechanism and to re-anonymize validators to reduce the traceability of validator activities. Currently, about one-third of ETH is staked.Thibault Dubuis, Head of Staking and Decentralized Finance Products at Sygnum Bank, stated that the current deposit addresses, validators, and withdrawal credentials create visible links, making institutional holdings, entry times, and staking strategies nearly public. This proposal is still in the discussion phase and has not yet scheduled a deployment time. Its design may involve arrangements such as fixed deposit denominations and asset withdrawal waiting periods, and institutional users may need to bear higher execution costs, process delays, and compliance work.

According to The Block, the Ethereum privacy infrastructure project Aztec has announced the launch of the complete v5 Execution Layer Alpha version, bringing multiple cryptographic optimizations aimed at achieving client-side ZK Proving with second-level generation on mobile phones and consumer-grade laptops.Aztec stated that the v5 Execution Layer reduces the computational burden required for local proof generation by optimizing the zero-knowledge proof generation process, allowing users to complete privacy transaction proofs without relying on large servers. This improvement is expected to further promote the widespread application of zero-knowledge technology.

The privacy network Dash announced on the X platform that the Orchard privacy pool has officially launched on its mainnet, with technology derived from the Zcash Orchard protocol, supporting 1-second confirmations and approximately 20 seconds for wallet synchronization.Dash stated that the privacy features for privacy stablecoins and other assets will be launched subsequently.

According to the Ethereum Magicians forum, developer Leo Glisic officially released Privacy Guardians 2 and announced the open-sourcing of its design. The project is positioned as a decentralized privacy payment system aimed at maximizing privacy protection for on-chain payments to combat issues such as freezing and monitoring present in centralized payment solutions (like OUSD launched by Corpo Consortium).The current V1 version includes multiple modules such as private payment mechanisms, insurance mechanisms, honeypot designs, exchange rate management, liquidity pools, and metadata processing. Glisic stated that this version is still in the early stages and has significant room for optimization in areas such as cryptographic security, incentive mechanism alignment, and capital efficiency, and he called on the community to participate in its improvement. The white paper has been simultaneously published on glisic.xyz.

Starknet announced the opening of its privacy development stack to developers, launching a privacy SDK and privacy wallet API, allowing applications, wallets, and protocols to integrate private balances, private transfers, and related DeFi interaction features based on STRK20.

The Ethereum institutional privacy technology company EthSystems has officially launched and received strategic funding support from ecosystem backers such as Bitmine, Sharplink Gaming, Joe Lubin, and SNZ Holding.EthSystems focuses on developing privacy technologies for banks, asset management companies, and other regulated entities, enabling institutions to execute financial transactions on the Ethereum network at scale while protecting sensitive information such as transaction details and client identities.The company was founded by the core team of the Institutional Privacy Task Force (IPTF) of the Ethereum Foundation. The team has previously conducted a year-long open-source research and development publicly on the EthSystems website and has established partnerships with several central banks, regulatory agencies, large banks, and asset management institutions. EthSystems stated that while institutions have begun exploring stablecoins, tokenized assets, and Ethereum-based settlement solutions, large-scale adoption still faces privacy and compliance challenges.Financial institutions need more than just access to blockchain networks; they require a complete infrastructure that meets business confidentiality protection, regulatory requirements, and compatibility with existing financial systems. The goal is to create a "selective disclosure" privacy architecture that allows transaction participants to view only the information they are authorized to access, while retaining the core advantages of Ethereum's decentralization, security, and openness, and complementing two other organizations: Ethlabs, which focuses on the research and development of Ethereum's core protocol and infrastructure; Ethereum Institutional, responsible for institutional collaboration, education, market research, and ecosystem coordination; and EthSystems, which focuses on application layer technology, transforming institutional needs into practical privacy protocols and financial systems.

According to official news, Starknet announced that STRK20 is officially launched, positioned as a privacy framework suitable for any assets in the Starknet ecosystem.This solution supports users to transfer assets into the privacy pool with one click, and developers can also integrate privacy features at a lower development cost through the software development kit and wallet application interface.

According to official news, the privacy public chain project MOBLUS STRIP (MS) announced the completion of a $50 million strategic financing round, led by Ventures. It is reported that this financing round was successfully closed after a six-month technical due diligence, and due to oversubscription, the project has officially launched a new round of institutional financing.It is reported that MOBLUS STRIP is a vertical field project under the global Web3 industry ecosystem alliance Crypto Oasis (Dubai Crypto Valley), mainly dedicated to developing a full-spectrum privacy public chain. This underlying blockchain natively integrates zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), ring signatures, and distributed mixing protocols, while equipped with five sets of closed-loop decentralized application solutions, capable of providing security guarantees for any EVM-compatible blockchain or enterprise system without the need for hard forks.

The Zcash development team announced plans to introduce formal verification through the upcoming new privacy pool Ironwood, using mathematical proofs to eliminate the risk of "undetectable inflation vulnerabilities."According to previous news, although the vulnerabilities in the Orchard shielded pool have been fixed and there is no evidence of exploitation, the community decided to launch a brand new Ironwood shielded pool and conduct comprehensive formal verification of its protocol, as it is theoretically impossible to confirm whether hidden inflation has occurred through on-chain history.