In short :
Ethereum's core team is developing stealth transactions protocol to the Ethereum mainnet soon. After this, sender shall be able to mask the recipient address and no one will be able to see the recipient address except the sender.
Some days ago, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin tweeted out a wish to improve transaction privacy. With the start of the development work of 'Umbra' protocol, his wish is going to take shape soon.
How Does Umbra Work?
Umbra protocol defines a set of rules with the singleton smart contract instance for this purpose.
Via a stealth address, a sender can send Ether or ERC20 assets to the recipient address, but no one except the sender and the recipient can know who is behind the scene.
To lookup on Etherscan transaction, it looks like a simple transfer like others.
Off chain, a public key of the sender will be published by the recipient using ENS to create the publicly shown address. With the Umbra protocol, the sender can let the recipient know that he/she sent a payment via a new stealth address. At last, no one can except the recipient creates a private key to withdraw the payment.
To learn more Umbra protocol, click here