Ethereum developers are advocating for built-in privacy at the protocol level, eliminating the need for third-party privacy solutions like Tornado Cash
The 2022 sanctions on Tornado Cash, recently lifted by President Trump in March 2025, reignited debates about censorship and privacy in blockchain
Security researcher Pascal Caversaccio published a detailed privacy roadmap, followed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin releasing his own privacy recommendations
Proposed privacy solutions include encrypting Ethereum's mempool, implementing zero-knowledge cryptography, and changing transaction models
These privacy discussions are happening ahead of Ethereum's upcoming Pectra upgrade and the subsequent Fusaka hard fork
Historical Context: The Tornado Cash Controversy
The U.S. government sanctioned Ethereum-based crypto mixing service Tornado Cash in 2022, claiming it facilitated money laundering
The sanctions caused Ethereum validators and block builders to avoid Tornado-linked transactions, making the service slower and costlier to use
Privacy advocates argued that complying with these sanctions undermined fundamental cypherpunk principles of censorship resistance
President Donald Trump lifted the sanctions on Tornado Cash in March 2025
The controversy highlighted a fundamental flaw: users should not need to depend on third-party applications to achieve transaction privacy
The Case for Default Privacy on Ethereum
Current Ethereum architecture makes transaction graphs publicly accessible, allowing anyone to trace fund flows between accounts
Balances are visible to all network participants, significantly undermining financial privacy
While Ethereum's transparency fosters trustlessness, it also creates vulnerability to surveillance, targeting, and exploitation
Pascal Caversaccio argues: "Privacy must not be an optional feature that users must consciously enable—it must be the default state of the network"
Current privacy solutions require users to take deliberate steps to conceal financial activities, often sacrificing usability, accessibility, and effectiveness
Pascal Caversaccio's Privacy Roadmap
Published a comprehensive blog post on Wednesday outlining his vision for privacy-oriented Ethereum
Proposed encrypting Ethereum's public mempool—where transactions wait before being permanently recorded
Recommended making Ethereum transactions confidential through:
Zero-knowledge cryptography implementation
New transaction formats
Other privacy-preserving methods
Emphasized that privacy-preserving technologies should be deeply integrated at the protocol level
Advocated for inherently confidential transactions, smart contracts, and network interactions
Vitalik Buterin's Privacy Recommendations
Responded to Caversaccio's post with his own shorter privacy-oriented Ethereum roadmap
Identified four key privacy focus areas:
Privacy for on-chain payments
Anonymizing on-chain activity within applications
Making network communication anonymous
Privatizing on-chain reads
Suggested integrating certain third-party privacy features into the core network
Proposed moving toward a "one address per application" model—a significant departure from the current system
Acknowledged this approach would require "significant convenience sacrifices" but argued it's necessary to "remove public links between all of your activity across different applications"
Believes implementing all his suggestions would make private transactions the default on Ethereum
Upcoming Ethereum Network Upgrades
The privacy discussion is occurring a few weeks before Ethereum's next major upgrade, Pectra
Pectra does not have a major focus on privacy features
Developers are also planning the subsequent Fusaka upgrade
Changes for the Fusaka hard fork are not yet finalized
These discussions could potentially influence the feature set of future Ethereum upgrades
