TL;DR
- Ethereum Foundation rebrands "Privacy & Scaling Explorations" to Privacy Stewards of Ethereum (PSE)
- Roadmap focuses on three pillars: Private Writes, Private Reads, and Private Proving
- New features coming: PlasmaFold private transfers, confidential voting, privacy-first DeFi tools
- Vitalik: "Privacy is an important guarantor of decentralization: whoever has the information has the power."
- First set of initiatives expected over the next 3-6 months
- Push to make private actions as easy as public ones and enable privacy-preserving data portability
The Ethereum Foundation has taken a big step toward what many in the crypto community have been calling for: privacy that is native to the Ethereum stack.
In a Friday announcement, the Foundation revealed its latest roadmap for privacy and rebranded its "Privacy & Scaling Explorations" initiative as Privacy Stewards of Ethereum (PSE). PSE aims to integrate privacy at every level - protocol, infrastructure, networking, applications, and even wallets. The roadmap lays out what the next 3-6 months will look like as Ethereum moves toward end-to-end privacy.
Said Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, underscoring the philosophy behind the initiative.
Three Pillars of Privacy
The roadmap is built around three key tracks:
1. Private Writes
Making private onchain actions as seamless and affordable as public ones.
This includes private transfers, private voting, and private interactions with dApps. PSE is also betting big on Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) - a technology that allows computations on encrypted data - as a long-term solution for practical privacy.
2. Private Reads
This track is about browsing Ethereum without being watched.
The goal is to let users query the network without exposing their identity or intent. Work is underway on privacy-preserving RPC nodes and mixnets (networks that hide transaction metadata by routing through multiple nodes).
3. Private Proving
Making data proving private and accessible for everyone.
This includes tools to generate zero-knowledge proofs quickly and securely, making it possible to prove facts - like ownership or age - without revealing personal data.
Key Initiatives for the Next 3-6 Months
PSE is not just talking theory - they have a concrete plan.
Private Transfers: PlasmaFold continues development, aiming to make private transfers cheap and efficient. Support for stealth addresses and post-quantum security is on the table.
Private Governance: Work with Aragon and others to create a new private voting protocol and release a "State of Private Voting 2025" report.
Confidential DeFi: A new Institutional Privacy Task Force (IPTF) is being launched to unblock adoption for enterprises that require privacy guarantees.
Network Privacy: Collaboration with researchers to integrate mixnet routing and ORAM (Oblivious RAM) solutions for privacy-preserving state reads.
Data Portability & zkTLS: Pushing zkTLS (zero-knowledge transport layer security) to production, enabling privacy-preserving data verification for web2 and web3.
Why This Matters
One of the more ambitious parts of the roadmap focuses on decentralized identity. PSE is developing standards for privacy-preserving credentials and unlinkable verification - so users can prove things about themselves without revealing everything.
This could have big implications for DeFi compliance, DAOs, and even social apps built on Ethereum. Privacy is not just a nice-to-have - it's essential for Ethereum's future.
As Vitalik wrote:
Without strong privacy, there's a risk that blockchain activity becomes easy to monitor and exploit, reducing user freedom and making Ethereum less censorship-resistant.
The Road Ahead
The next six months will be crucial for PSE as they test, iterate, and collaborate with other teams across the ecosystem.
If successful, this roadmap could transform Ethereum from a transparent-by-default network into one where users have real choice over what they reveal. Privacy, after all, is not just about hiding - it's about enabling freedom.
