In a recent report, the Ethereum foundation has published a roadmap on bringing end-to-end privacy to Ethereum, in an initiative titled “Privacy Stewards of Ethereum” (PSE).
The roadmap also proposed exploring a workaround for personal data being broadcast through remote procedure call (RPC) services, and private identity solutions through zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, a way of verifying information without revealing the specific contents of that information. PSE outlined its mission:
Ethereum deserves to become core infrastructure for global digital commerce, identity, collaboration, and the internet of value. But this potential is impossible without private data, transactions, and identity. We take responsibility within the Ethereum Foundation for ensuring privacy goals at the application layer are reached.
We’ll work with protocol teams to ensure that any L1 changes needed to enable strong, censorship-resistant intermediary-free privacy take place,” the announcement continued. – Cointelegraph report
Privacy is something we've debated as cryptocurrency enthusiasts over the years. From privacy coins and chains to the more recently advertised Zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs solutions, a common ground amongst the vast majority has always been that this ecosystem will thrive better when privacy is at the foundational layer.
Over the years, we've had several attacks from early no-coiners and the governments on how crypto is used for criminal transactions, even though traditional channels remain the actively leveraged means of moving illicit money.
These baseless attacks have come to serve as evidence that the corrupt world is scared of crypto, seeing that the majority of transactions that occur in this ecosystem are public, making it greatly unattractive for criminals.
Surely, one can argue that the lack of KYC makes the transparent nature of blockchain transactions nearly useless and they would be correct, except they don't realize that by being “nearly” and not “totally” useless, blockchain transactions are far easier to track and monitor than transactions on traditional financial platforms.
Yet, we've constantly been termed the “crime industry.”
Shifting to privacy is an urgency
If transparency has been the core design for blockchain transactions and yet the ecosystem received regulatory attacks, it would be proof that the problem the government have with blockchain transactions isn't about who can initiate them, but that there's lack of a central control of these networks by the government.
As a result, the industry has to shift its focus to building not just more decentralized solutions to combat the flaws of centralized systems but also, give a great deal of attention to privacy.
Privacy is a human right and it should be the default in everything that is being built in our ecosystem.
Every argument against privacy is an argument for tyranny.
There's no other way around this.
The US Department of the Treasury is already exploring embedding know your customers (KYCs) checks into smart contracts. Succeeding at this would effectively turn every integrated network into a hybrid network that is neither fully permissioned or permissionless, bringing the industry back to functioning on the same rules of the traditional financial system it was building away from.
If blockchains most include identity checks or transaction transparencies, these features have to be optional and not the default.
If people ever need to verify their identity or reveal their transactions, they can choose to, otherwise, the ecosystem ought to be built on privacy-facing and permissionless designs.