# vitalik.eth: donated 128 ETH each to Session and Simplex for metadata privacy

Source: https://farcaster.xyz/vitalik.eth/0xbee008d5

## Summary

Vitalik Buterin says he donated 128 ETH each to Session and Simplex, two messaging apps he describes as pushing permissionless account creation and metadata privacy forward. He urges readers to download and use both apps, while noting that neither is yet optimal in user experience or security. The post says strong metadata privacy requires decentralization, which is hard, and that multi-device support and Sybil or DoS resistance add further difficulty.

## Article

Encrypted messaging, like Signal, is critical for preserving our digital privacy. Two important next steps for the space are (i) permissionless account creation and (ii) metadata privacy.

Session and Simplex are two messaging apps pushing these directions forward.

For this reason I've donated 128 ETH to each. Addresses available on their websites if you wish to follow on:

https://getsession.org
https://simplex.chat

But also, actually download and use them!

Neither of the two are perfect pieces of software, they have a way to go to get to truly optimal user experience and security. Strong metadata privacy requires decentralization, decentralization is hard, users expecting multi-device support makes everything harder. Sybil / DoS resistance, both in the message routing network and on the user side (without forcing phone number dependence) adds further difficulty.

These problems need more eyes on them. I wish all teams working on these important problems best of luck.

## Comments

**mishaderidder.eth**: just found out I have a Session account since 2020 (since inception) - anyway no friends yet lol