Unchained What Ethereum Will Look Like When It Implements Its New Privacy Focus - Ep. 959
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Nov 25, 2025 
Andy Guzman and Oskar Thorén from the Ethereum Foundation dive into the newly launched Privacy Cluster, aiming to make privacy a top priority for Ethereum. They discuss the inspiration from Zcash, the importance of privacy in crypto, and how this initiative differs from past efforts. The pair explores privacy use cases, the role of institutions, and challenges like regulatory compliance. Expect insights on the potential for private transactions within six months and how Ethereum plans to coexist with privacy-focused platforms.
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Three Tracks: Reads, Writes, Proving
- The team splits work into private reads, private writes, and private proving to cover metadata, on-chain actions, and attestations.
- These tracks aim to let users prove real-world facts without revealing underlying data.
Trust Math Over Custodians
- Build privacy systems that trust math not custodians: use zk-proofs to replace centralized KYC and reduce honeypot risks.
- Oskar Thorén compares this shift to web encryption's normalization (HTTPS) for safer online commerce.
ZK Enables Private Digital IDs
- Zero-knowledge proofs let you prove passport-level facts without sharing full documents, enabling private digital identity schemes.
- Andy highlights both retrofit (AnonAadhar) and Greenfield examples like Bhutan using Ethereum as a trust anchor.