From Wallet Cash Flow Concealment to On-Chain Interaction Anonymity: Vitalik Presents the “Ethereum Minimal L1 Privacy Roadmap”
Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin Proposes “Minimalist L1 Privacy Roadmap”
This morning, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin presented a proposal titled “Minimalist L1 Privacy Roadmap” at the Ethereum Magicians technical community, outlining nine strategies to enhance privacy protection for Ethereum users. This plan focuses on seamless integration with existing wallets and emphasizes lightweight design, aiming to make privacy a norm within Ethereum without altering the consensus mechanism.
Four Key Aspects: Defining Ethereum’s Future Privacy Blueprint
Vitalik’s proposal centers on enhancing privacy protection within the Ethereum ecosystem, primarily covering four key aspects:
- On-chain Payment Privacy: Protecting the flow of funds from being traced.
- Application Activity Anonymity: Severing behavioral links between different applications.
- On-chain Read Confidentiality (e.g., RPC calls): Preventing the collection of user on-chain interaction data.
- Network Layer Anonymization: Reducing the risk of user identity exposure online.
These strategies not only focus on technical implementation but also consider the mutual benefits with the existing ecosystem, enhancing the overall user experience.
Specific Implementation Steps
Vitalik proposed a series of specific measures, with the following key steps in the roadmap:
Starting with Wallets: Naturally Integrating Privacy Features into Daily Use
He first suggested integrating privacy tools such as Railgun and Privacy Pools into mainstream wallets. Through the concept of “shielded balance,” users can preset privacy options when transferring funds without needing additional settings or downloading new applications.
It is worth mentioning that just a few days ago, the Solana network infrastructure Helius launched the “Confidential Balances” feature, which combines zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) as a token privacy mechanism, enhancing user privacy while maintaining efficient transaction processing capabilities.
One Address per Application: Breaking Activity Links Between Applications
He advocated for a future default model of “one address per application,” sacrificing some convenience for heightened anonymity, ultimately promoting automatic activation of privacy protection for self-transactions, thereby enhancing the privacy of user transactions.
Technical Upgrades: FOCIL, EIP-7701, and RPC Protection
Concurrently, by implementing the anti-censorship mechanism (FOCIL) and account abstraction proposal (EIP-7701), the deployment of privacy protocols can be simplified. In the short term, a RPC protection mechanism based on Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) can be adopted, with the expectation to replace it with Private Information Retrieval (PIR) technology in the future, offering more robust data protection.
Multi-node, Multi-layer Protection: Strengthening Data Leak Prevention Design
Vitalik also suggested that wallets should be designed to connect to multiple RPC nodes by default, combined with mixnet technology, and utilize independent node connections for different applications to prevent data concentration that could lead to exposure.
Reducing Costs, Enhancing Efficiency: Introducing Proof Aggregation Technology
To lower the gas costs of using privacy protocols, he proposed the method of proof aggregation protocols, allowing multiple privacy protocol transactions to share a single on-chain proof, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing user burden.
Private Key Vaults: Upgrading Account Verification Logic with a Single Transaction
Additionally, he emphasized the creation of “privacy-preserving keystore wallets” that can synchronize updates between L1 and L2, allowing account upgrades and privacy records to automatically sync without disclosing the connectivity of on-chain data.
Vitalik’s Vision for the Future: Making Privacy the Default State of Ethereum
Finally, Vitalik hopes that the future of Ethereum can achieve the following vision:
- Most transactions inherently possess privacy
- Activities between applications are isolated from each other
- Capable of resisting threats from multiple parties, including block observers and RPC nodes
This blueprint not only reflects technological innovation but also embodies a commitment to decentralization and user sovereignty.
User-Centric Approach: Community Actively Promoting Ethereum Privacy Innovations
Vitalik’s proposal has sparked enthusiastic discussions within the community. He shared this roadmap on the X platform, emphasizing its lightweight nature and integration with the existing ecosystem.
Meanwhile, community member @pcaversaccio also released a roadmap titled “Ethereum Privacy: The Road to Self-Sovereignty” a few days ago, exploring a similar path for privacy enhancement, which received retweets and recognition from Vitalik. Both proposals emphasize user-centric privacy design, demonstrating a high consensus within the Ethereum community on privacy issues.
The Evolution of Ethereum Privacy Officially Begins
Vitalik’s “Minimalist L1 Privacy Roadmap” marks an important starting point for the privacy revolution in Ethereum. Through integration with existing wallets and ecosystems, it aims to achieve privacy protection for payments, application activities, on-chain reads, and network layers, gradually moving Ethereum towards a new standard of “privacy by default.”
With the active promotion of community members, the future of Ethereum’s privacy is gradually taking shape.
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