Ethereum Foundation Expands Privacy Efforts With New Research Initiative
The Ethereum Foundation is prioritizing privacy in its roadmap, expanding research into a dedicated "privacy cluster" covering private payments, proofs, identity, and enterprise use cases.
Since 2018, the Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) team has supported privacy projects like Semaphore, MACI, zkEmail, zkTLS, and Anon Aadhaar.
Igor Barinov coordinates the new privacy initiatives, which include private payment reads/writes, portable proofs for identity, zkID systems, and user-friendly cryptography tools like Kohaku.
An Institutional Privacy Task Force aims to translate compliance requirements into actionable specifications for enterprises.
The Foundation sees privacy as crucial for Ethereum's credibility, as blockchains need to offer privacy options for users and institutions.
With over 700 privacy-focused projects in crypto, Ethereum's influence could standardize privacy tools that balance confidentiality with compliance.
The Foundation adopts a cautious approach due to political scrutiny on privacy features, focusing on open-source research and institution-facing task forces.
