Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed a comprehensive roadmap to enhance user privacy on the blockchain.
This plan envisions a world where private transactions are the norm, allowing users to interact between applications without publicly linking their activities.
Vitalik Buterin Reveals Privacy-Focused Ethereum Roadmap
Buterin shared the roadmap at the Ethereum Magicians Forum on April 11th. It presented practical and incremental improvements that would allow everyday users to more easily access private transactions and anonymous on-chain interactions without demanding significant changes to Ethereum's core consensus protocol.
"This roadmap can be combined with deeper changes to L1, privacy-preserving application-specific rollups, or other complex features." – Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Co-founder
The roadmap implements various short-term and long-term solutions addressing four primary privacy forms, focusing on improving on-chain payment privacy, partially anonymizing in-app activities, on-chain reading privacy, and network-level anonymity.
First, he proposed integrating privacy tools into wallets, enabling features like a default "protected balance" that allows users to keep transactions private. The goal is to enhance privacy without users needing to switch to separate privacy-focused wallets.
Next, Buterin proposed an "one address per application" standard to limit traceability.
"This is a big step forward and involves substantial convenience sacrifices, but in my opinion, this is the bullet we must bite because it's the most practical way to remove public links between all activities across different applications." – Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Co-founder
Additionally, Buterin suggested making "self-sending" transactions inherently privacy-preserving, which he explained is necessary for the per-application address design to work effectively.
He also focused on using Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) for RPC privacy in the short term, adding that Private Information Retrieval (PIR) could be used in the future.
"Adding a security glove to RPC nodes (e.g., supporting light clients) makes it more practical for users to trust many more RPC servers. This reduces metadata leakage." – Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Co-founder
The roadmap proposed deeper changes long-term, such as implementing EIP-7701 (account abstraction) and FOCIL (Fork Choice Forced Inclusion List), which would enable privacy protocols to operate without centralized relays, making them more resistant to censorship and contributing to increased privacy.
Buterin's roadmap received significant attention from the community, with many showing optimistic reactions. The Ethereum ecosystem has long demanded user privacy improvements, and this new plan seems to empathize with such concerns.
"Vitalik is finally paying the necessary attention to privacy, and this roadmap appears to be a solid step towards making Ethereum more user-friendly without touching consensus." – Analyst
However, not all feedback was positive. Some community members maintain a cautious stance regarding the potential challenges of implementing such ambitious changes.
"Vitalik's roadmap is robust but carries high execution risks. To truly want privacy, it's crucial to adopt zk technology." – Another Analyst
This proposal emerged as the Ethereum ecosystem prepares for the Petra upgrade. While Petra focuses on performance and usability, Buterin's privacy roadmap complements these efforts by addressing critical user needs. If implemented, these changes could position Ethereum as a more privacy-conscious blockchain, potentially driving greater adoption as the network evolves.
