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Vitalik Buterin Proposes Roadmap to Boost Ethereum User Privacy
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has presented a roadmap aimed at significantly enhancing the privacy of Ethereum users. In a post on Ethereum Magicians, he outlined practical and incremental improvements that can be implemented without requiring major changes to the network’s core protocol.
Buterin emphasized the importance of enhancing user privacy in Ethereum transactions. Currently, the Ethereum blockchain is transparent by design, which while excellent for trust and security, allows for easy tracking of user activity. This means that if someone knows an Ethereum address, they can trace a user’s entire transaction history, including balances, app usage, and interactions with other users.
To mitigate this issue, Buterin proposed several key measures. Firstly, he suggested that wallets like MetaMask or Rabby integrate tools such as Railgun and Privacy Pools, providing users with a “shielded balance” and private send options by default. This change would ensure that transactions between individual’s own wallets are always conducted privately.
Furthermore, Buterin advised wallet providers to automatically generate different addresses for each decentralized application (dApp) instead of using a single address for all activities. He emphasized the significance of breaking public links between users’ activity across various applications. “This is a major step, and it entails significant convenience sacrifices, but IMO, this is a bullet we should bite because this is the most practical way to remove public links between all of your activity across different applications,” he said.
Buterin also advocated for utilizing Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) now and Private Information Retrieval (PIR) later to provide cryptographic guarantees that prevent data from leaking to RPC nodes. Additionally, he recommended that wallets rotate between multiple RPC nodes and send data through “mixnets” to thwart metadata leaks.
To reduce costs for users, Buterin proposed a concept called “proof aggregation,” where multiple transactions can share a single on-chain proof. This innovation would greatly benefit users by cutting down on transaction expenses.
Buterin emphasized the need for immediate integration of privacy-enhancing technologies into wallets, standards, and user habits rather than waiting for long-term Ethereum upgrades. The next major upgrade on Ethereum, Pectra, is scheduled to deploy on the mainnet in May, but Buterin believes it’s essential to act now to enhance user privacy.
In conclusion, Vitalik Buterin’s proposed roadmap aims to boost Ethereum user privacy without relying on significant changes to the network’s core protocol.
Source: https://cryptopotato.com/vitalik-buterin-proposes-roadmap-to-boost-ethereum-user-privacy/
