privacy

The digital euro is issued by the European Central Bank (ECB) and represents public money, and it is still in the development stage; EURR is a stablecoin issued by private institutions aimed at maintaining the value stability of 1 euro. Both are aimed at the demand for instant fund flows in digital platforms. The fintech company Revolut has phased the launch of the euro stablecoin EURR to eligible users in Denmark, Poland, and Portugal, with plans to expand to the European Economic Area in the future.EURR is deployed on the Ethereum network and can be used for on-chain transfers between fiat currencies, crypto assets, external wallets, and supported blockchain networks. EURR is issued by Bridge Building, a company under Stripe, rather than directly by Revolut. Piero Cipollone, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, stated that the digital euro will provide the highest level of privacy supported by current technology, with offline payments visible only to the payer and payee, while participating banks in online transactions can still access the information required for anti-money laundering compliance.

The privacy and regulatory compliance tool supported by the Ethereum Foundation, 0xbow.io, awarded a $5,000 bounty to researcher ross.wei for disclosing a vulnerability in the Privacy Pools v1 SDK.The vulnerability reduced the entropy of the user account master key generation and was fixed in March. The team has provided a migration process, and there have been no reported losses of user funds.

Piero Cipollone, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, stated in an interview with the Italian media ilsussidiario.net on August 10 that the digital euro will provide the highest level of privacy protection achievable with current technology. Offline payments will be made directly between individuals, with transaction details visible only to the payer and the payee; during online payments, the euro system will not be able to identify the payer or payee, only the commercial banks involved in the transaction will be able to identify them, including for anti-money laundering purposes.The European Parliament reached a negotiating position on the regulation of the digital euro in July, with the negotiation goal with member states to reach an agreement by the end of 2026. The European Central Bank has designated 36 payment service providers, including Deutsche Bank, UniCredit, and Revolut, to participate in a 12-month pilot starting in the second half of 2027, with the first issuance targeted for 2029. Meanwhile, the "21st Century Road Act" signed in July in the United States prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing central bank digital currency before the end of 2030, unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board member Piero Cipollone stated in a recent interview that the digital euro will provide stronger privacy protection than regular bank transfers. He pointed out that the euro system is structurally unable to associate specific individuals with their digital euro transactions, whether online or offline.Cipollone stated that offline payments will be conducted entirely directly between individuals, with transaction details visible only to the payer and payee, equivalent to cash transactions; only banks participating in online transactions will be able to identify user identities, and this will only be used for anti-money laundering purposes. He also refuted concerns that the digital euro would replace physical cash, citing the ECB's recent public consultation on the design of the new euro banknotes as an example, stating, "If institutions intend to eliminate cash, it makes no sense to do so."Cipollone's remarks come at a time when public opposition to the digital euro is rising. Civil society groups such as the Austrian digital rights organization Epicenter.works warned in a joint statement earlier this month that the privacy protections of the digital euro "over-rely on institutional commitments rather than technical execution," and that legislative commitments may be weakened in implementation, reinterpreted in court, or even broken. The digital euro regulation was approved by the European Parliament last month, with plans to launch in 2029. ECB President Lagarde previously stated that the digital euro will coexist with physical cash.

The Grayscale Zcash research report points out that as AI development brings new means of financial monitoring, Zcash's privacy features may become a necessary function in the AI era. Zcash achieves shielded transactions through zero-knowledge proofs, hiding the sender, receiver, and amount, possessing cash-like privacy attributes. Currently, shielded transactions account for about 90% of the transaction volume, with approximately 4.2 million ZEC shielded (accounting for 25% of the circulating supply).Grayscale notes that Zcash has a market capitalization of about $8 billion, which only accounts for 0.6% of its category "currency-type crypto assets" (total market capitalization of $1.4 trillion). If this category's share reaches 5%, the value of ZEC would be nine times its current value. The report believes that the market's current valuation of Zcash reflects the assumption that "privacy will remain marginalized," and if investors ultimately believe that privacy should receive a moderate premium, the current valuation may be underestimated. In terms of risks, the report mentions long-term risks such as regulation and quantum computing, but believes that Zcash's shielding technology and selective disclosure tools provide a pathway for compliance.

According to Decrypt, the privacy blockchain project Beldex announced the completion of an $8 million financing round, led by Sigma Capital, with participation from institutions such as NTC, Nxgen, Digital Consensus Fund, and EAK Ventures. The new funds will be used for developer tools, privacy applications, protocol security, AI infrastructure development, and ecosystem expansion.Beldex is exploring the use of its privacy technology to protect the identity, payments, communication, and data processing of AI entities, including privacy-preserving AI identities, encrypted AI communication, confidential payments, secure AI execution, as well as research on technologies such as fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and secure memory.

Kaito AI founder Yu Hu responded to the community's privacy concerns regarding the Pulse browser extension. Yu Hu stated that Pulse's verification feature is based on zkTLS technology and generates encrypted proofs only when users actively initiate verification. Kaito only receives the final proof and not the complete account data or browsing history. The interactive data collection of Pulse on the X platform (such as content exposure, duration of stay, interactions) has been clearly authorized at the time of user installation and will not send browsing activities from other web pages to Kaito.Regarding the Chrome prompt "can read and write all website data," Yu Hu acknowledged that its displayed scope is broader than actual use and will be corrected in the next version to "can read and write X website data," which critics like Ultra have recognized. Kaito Pulse will be open-sourced this week for community review. Yu Hu stated that Pulse's device fingerprinting feature is only used to prevent abuse behaviors such as click fraud and witch attacks, and is not used for analysis or other purposes. This statement serves as Kaito's official response to recent community concerns, with the specific features of Pulse to be confirmed by the open-source code.

The attention economy platform Kaito AI launched the browser extension Kaito Pulse on August 18, which can directly integrate users' public holdings and other off-chain activities on platforms like Polymarket and Hyperliquid into the X timeline, and synchronously introduce the attention metric Aura to measure the attention signals generated by users' statements and actual behaviors. Users can accumulate Aura by installing the extension, using Yaps to receive initial Aura, verifying transactions, or engaging in creator activities.Subsequently, well-known analyst @0x_ultra released a source code analysis stating that the extension has multiple data collection behaviors, including generating a unique device fingerprint through GPU rendering, device model, and audio tests, and associating it with the X account; recording user behaviors such as scrolling duration, clicks, searches, bookmarks, etc., during X sessions, and sending heartbeat packets every 30 seconds; reading subscription plans and usage for ChatGPT and Claude during verification, as well as wallet balances, holdings, profits and losses, and deposit/withdrawal records on platforms like Binance. The extension only allows communication with the Kaito domain, and the ZKTLS part is based on the open-source project Primus branch. Kaito officials have not yet responded to this.

Ethereum Foundation researcher Toni Wahrstätter stated that the protocol architecture team hopes to prioritize the advancement of Frame Transactions (EIP-8141) and FOCIL (EIP-7805) in the Hegotá upgrade planned for 2027. Frame Transactions can collaborate with Keyed Nonces and Recent Roots (EIP-8272) and Transaction Assertions (EIP-7906) to allow privacy pools to autonomously pay transaction fees and enable wallets to set execution conditions after transaction submission.FOCIL can provide protocol layer inclusion guarantees for eligible transactions. Currently, FOCIL is the only proposal confirmed for inclusion in Hegotá, while the Frame Transactions-related proposals are among the 66 proposals under evaluation. Other candidate proposals involve transaction pricing, state growth, block access lists, and optional zkEVM proofs on the mainnet. Vitalik Buterin previously proposed enhancing Ethereum's privacy, quantum resistance, and reducing reliance on layer two networks. Hegotá will be launched after Glamsterdam, with developers planning to complete Glamsterdam by the end of 2026.

ChianCatcher news, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan stated during an interview on a blog program under Cypherpunk that cryptocurrency is not only a business matter but also an ideological one. The banking and political systems have failed and need to withdraw to self-sovereignty, and the missing part is privacy.He pointed out that the two major innovations of Bitcoin are programmability represented by Ethereum and privacy represented by Zcash. From 2009 to 2017, Bitcoin's viability was proven; from 2017 to 2025, programmability's viability will be proven; and now, from around 2025 to 2030, is the privacy phase. Privacy means using ZK encryption for everything, including ZKYC, ZK DEX, and ZK smart contracts, to achieve the minimum necessary information. This may require modifications to the base layer, new L1, or entirely new companies, and ZK can technically attract high-IQ talent like AI.

According to CoinDesk, the privacy blockchain project Miden plans to launch the privacy stablecoin USDCx, which is natively issued on the Miden network based on Circle's xReserve infrastructure, maintaining a 1:1 peg with USDC. When users hold and transfer USDCx, their balances, counterparties, or transaction histories will not be publicly exposed, but selective information disclosure will be supported for compliance needs.The stablecoin is expected to launch in sync with the Miden mainnet, which is targeted to start at the end of this month. Miden views USDCx as the foundation of its "PriFi" privacy finance direction, covering scenarios such as institutional trading, B2B payments, payroll management, and cross-border payments, aiming to address the pain points of achieving both transparency and compliance in institutional finance on public blockchains. Previously, in April last year, it was reported that Miden completed a $25 million seed round of financing, led by a16z Crypto along with Hack VC and 1kx.

Sui posted on platform X, stating that institutions will not choose to settle on infrastructure where competitors can see pricing and trading volume. The public amounts on most blockchains have been a barrier to actual commercial settlements.Mysten launched a new prototype that addresses the issue of amount privacy. This prototype is built on Seal MPC and confidential transfers.

Vitalik Buterin stated that he has compared the 2023 Ethereum roadmap with the current Strawmap, and while there is still a high degree of overlap in the overall direction, some priorities and technical paths have been clearly adjusted. This includes elevating the priority of quantum security, downplaying VDF and certain EVM improvements, and replacing old designs with unified binary trees, PBT, new state types, and other solutions.He pointed out that the most significant change in the current Strawmap is the emergence of several new topics not included in the 2023 roadmap, reflecting a shift in the focus of Ethereum's development. These new focal points include: stronger native privacy support, aggressive scaling in a post-quantum context, streamlined specifications for formal verification, Blob and Gas futures, native Rollup, and a more open design space around the future form of EVM.Vitalik also emphasized that Ethereum's scaling approach is shifting from "broadly scaling all activities" to "designing more easily scalable dedicated mechanisms for specific high-load scenarios," and views STARK proofs and AI-accelerated formal verification as important foundations for the protocol's future. Overall, this update indicates that the Ethereum roadmap is evolving towards quantum security, privacy-first, censorship resistance, high performance, and more simplified protocol design.

The latest software version 3.3.0 of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) introduces multiple upgrade proposals, among which the "Confidential Transfers" feature aims to provide higher privacy protection for institutional users, supporting the encryption of token balances and transfer amounts while maintaining visibility of account and token types. This feature is primarily targeted at Multi-Purpose Tokens (MPT) on the XRPL, with application scenarios including tokenized financial assets such as funds and bonds. Through cryptographic technologies like zero-knowledge proofs, the network can verify the validity of transactions without disclosing specific amounts.According to market news, the XRPL currently has approximately $1.38 billion in on-chain real-world assets (RWA), including about $845.7 million in RLUSD. In addition to RLUSD, there are over $530 million in tokenized assets on the XRPL, involving issuers such as Ondo, VERT Capital, Archax, and Société Générale. Besides Confidential Transfers, the XRPL 3.3.0 version also includes five proposals: Batch, Sponsor, Permission Delegation, and Dynamic MPT, which address institutional needs for batch transactions, fee payment, permission management, and dynamic adjustment of token attributes. However, these upgrades have not yet been officially launched and will need to gain over 80% support from trusted validation nodes on the XRPL for two consecutive weeks before activation. The market is paying attention to whether institutions like Aviva and Ondo, which have issued assets on the XRPL, will adopt this privacy feature.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that Signal recently announced it is exploring allowing users to register accounts without a phone number. He welcomed this move, believing it helps reduce reliance on the highly oligopolistic system of phone numbers, lowers the identity security risks associated with SIM card swaps, and makes it more difficult for governments to pressure Signal to ban users based on nationality.Vitalik also pointed out that while this initiative is better for privacy protection than the current situation, it only achieves "confidentiality" and does not reach true anonymity, as metadata such as message sending time, frequency, and recipients could still be used for identity correlation. He believes that with the development of artificial intelligence technology, long-lasting anonymous accounts are becoming outdated, and the only defensible form of privacy is "message-by-message uncorrelatable," meaning that no one other than the sender and receiver knows the identities of the communicating parties. This direction is currently being explored and advanced by new communication tools and mixing network projects such as Session and SimpleX. Additionally, protection against spam and denial-of-service attacks will become the next key issues to address.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a new article introducing a novel cryptographic obfuscation technology called Diamond iO. This technology aims to address the extremely low efficiency of traditional indistinguishable obfuscation schemes, allowing programs to run while hiding internal logic and critical data. Although traditional iO technology possesses strong privacy protection capabilities, its operational costs are prohibitively high, making it nearly impractical. Diamond iO, by adopting more aggressive new cryptographic assumptions, enhances computational efficiency from "universe-level time consumption" to "planet-level time consumption," bringing it closer to practical application.Diamond iO is built on technologies such as Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) and Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). By encrypting programs, it allows users to execute the encrypted programs and obtain correct outputs without being able to view the internal code or hidden keys. This solution introduces a new input encoding mechanism and conditional decryption method, reducing computational complexity while ensuring the program logic remains hidden. Its core application scenarios include protecting programs that contain private keys, enabling secure software licensing, constructing trustless cryptographic services, and supporting blockchain and artificial intelligence systems with stronger privacy protection.However, Diamond iO is still in the early research stage, and its security relies on new cryptographic assumptions, including All-Product LWE and Evasive LWE, which require further research validation. At the same time, the technology still faces efficiency challenges such as high computational overhead and circuit depth limitations. Researchers believe that by optimizing underlying hash functions, improving homomorphic encryption schemes, and reducing security parameter requirements, Diamond iO is expected to become an important direction for advancing practical program obfuscation technology in the future.

According to official social media news, Huobi HTX will hold a themed debate titled "The Life and Death of Privacy and Regulation: Will Privacy Coins Eventually Be Eliminated, or Will They Experience a Dark Explosion?" today at 8 PM. At that time, representatives from the affirmative side, including Yi Ge, Dog Treasure, Draco, and Qiang Ge, will engage in a heated exchange with representatives from the opposing side, DaDa, Sasaki Hoshino, Volcano Brother, and FomoDao, focusing on hot topics such as the future development of privacy coins, regulatory pressure, technological value, and market demand.

Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-8222 aims to separate staking deposits from withdrawals through a STARK-based cryptographic mechanism and to re-anonymize validators to reduce the traceability of validator activities. Currently, about one-third of ETH is staked.Thibault Dubuis, Head of Staking and Decentralized Finance Products at Sygnum Bank, stated that the current deposit addresses, validators, and withdrawal credentials create visible links, making institutional holdings, entry times, and staking strategies nearly public. This proposal is still in the discussion phase and has not yet scheduled a deployment time. Its design may involve arrangements such as fixed deposit denominations and asset withdrawal waiting periods, and institutional users may need to bear higher execution costs, process delays, and compliance work.

According to The Block, the Ethereum privacy infrastructure project Aztec has announced the launch of the complete v5 Execution Layer Alpha version, bringing multiple cryptographic optimizations aimed at achieving client-side ZK Proving with second-level generation on mobile phones and consumer-grade laptops.Aztec stated that the v5 Execution Layer reduces the computational burden required for local proof generation by optimizing the zero-knowledge proof generation process, allowing users to complete privacy transaction proofs without relying on large servers. This improvement is expected to further promote the widespread application of zero-knowledge technology.