# Ethereum Privacy: The Road to Self-Sovereignty

Source: https://ethresear.ch/t/ethereum-privacy-the-road-to-self-sovereignty/22115
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Ethereum-Privacy-The-Road-to-Self-Sovereignty?index=0x67f68b47eeb2e75035841c55e7e8fe0612274b1feac6d77ff98a82b39152ccc255dbe30e
Submitted by tim on 2025-04-09 UTC, 2 upvotes, 1 comment

## Summary

This roadmap argues that Ethereum should provide privacy by default and unconditionally, so users do not have to prove their innocence or take deliberate steps to conceal financial activity. It says the current model is partly opt-in, which often costs users usability, accessibility and effectiveness. It proposes integrating privacy-preserving technologies at the protocol level so that transactions, smart contracts and network interactions are confidential by default. The text closes by inviting feedback, ideas and concerns from readers.

## Article

Ethereum Privacy: The Road to Self-Sovereignty

Ethereum must provide privacy unconditionally, without forcing users to prove their innocence.

This roadmap outlines the necessary steps to transform Ethereum into a maximally private and self-sovereign financial system. Privacy must not be an optional feature that users must consciously enable — it must be the default state of the network. Ethereum’s architecture must be designed to ensure that users are private by default, not by exception.

Today, Ethereum operates in a partial, opt-in privacy model, where users must take deliberate steps to conceal their financial activities — often at the cost of usability, accessibility, and even effectiveness. This paradigm must shift. Privacy-preserving technologies should be deeply integrated at the protocol level, allowing transactions, smart contracts, and network interactions to be inherently confidential. A system that treats privacy as suspicious by default is fundamentally flawed. Ethereum must empower users with unconditional privacy — making self-sovereignty a guarantee, not a privilege.

Building a truly privacy-first Ethereum needs all our insights! Please share your feedback, ideas, and any concerns here so we can actively co-create this path forward together.

## Comments

**tim**: I didn't read it all, but I have the same criticism that I have in other places of the Ethereum roadmap, when we are primarily speaking about the personal preferences of some of these people leading the effort. They should be following more of a fiduciary duty towards ETH the asset. In fact, I have argued against the premise of this proposal in a group chat, and I was told that the idea of Ethereum as an investment should die in a fire. As a rebuttal to my argument that going maximally activist on the Ethereum roadmap is bad for number go up.

I honestly don't even know where the author has drawn the points for his motivation here. He claims that Ethereum's privacy is conditional, which is not true, because Tornado Cash is not, as he argues, a permission that can be taken away. But at this moment it is and has always been a technologically provided right, as nobody has ever been barred from using it to shield their funds. Not even when validators and block builders tried to censor the inclusion of TC transactions. In fact, it has been a broad misunderstanding in the community that a majority censorship equates a total censorship. However, just one block builder every now and then can insert all Tornado Cash transactions into the chain. And so this creates a pretty strong guarantee for a financial privacy right.


Aside from the motivation, I can also criticize some parts of the execution. Particularly, I don't like that the author wants to first narrowly encrypt ETH, and then ERC20s, and then everything else. As with the roll-up roadmap, this creates a kind of privilege for some applications on the L1. And so, it violates a core principle that Vitalik used when building Ethereum, which is that he wanted to keep the L1 layer as generalized and Turing-complete as possible. 

Under the EU's Micar, Markets and Privacy Regulation, crypto asset providers like centralized exchanges must adhere to enhanced transparency and disclosure obligations, particularly anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing measures. Since its application in December 2024, Monero has been delisted from Kraken.

I find the quote that freedom must never be weakened in the name of safety a misappropriation of so-called cypherpunk principles. You absolutely have the unconditional right for privacy today on Ethereum using TC. Even at the expense of your own safety and in particular also when the United States sanctioned its use. I know I may sound pedantic but if you are willing to sacrifice your personal safety you could have transacted through TC at any point in time unconditionally since it has existed. Besides, I find this principle highly questionable as it does not delineate between the freedoms of two or more people. If my freedom cannot be weakened in the name of safety but this puts me in harm's way then I'm not sure if you shall be enabled to act in maximal freedom.