Vitalik Buterin announces Ethereum Privacy Roadmap

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, outlined an extensive plan he created to enhance privacy for the network.

On the roadmap on April 11th, Buterin insisted on incorporating privacy tools into Ether (ETH) wallets and implementing norms and features that improve privacy in the Ethereum ecosystem and protocols. He explained that the roadmap in question is a short-term solution that requires limited changes to the basic protocol, along with supplemental long-term updates.

According to the plan, Buterin recommends adopting privacy-enhancing systems with existing wallets, such as Railgun and privacy pools. When funds are sent in these wallets, he insists that users should be greeted with the option “sent from shielded balance.” He wrote:

“Users do not need to download another ‘Privacy Wallet’. ”

Related: Privacy Pool Released at Ethereum, Vitalik Demonstrating Features

Big changes recommended for Defi

Buterin also recommended a deeper change in how Decentralized Financial (DEFI) and broader distributed applications (DAPP) are implemented. He argued that these systems should be limited to “one address per application.”

The co-founder of Ethereum acknowledged that this requires a “sacrificing convenience,” but “is the most practical way to remove public links between all activities across various applications.” He also emphasizes that the user experience is “very similar” to depositing funds from another chain of cross-chain interoperability systems into one chain.

Additionally, Buterin emphasized that in order to enjoy the benefits of this change, developers need to ensure that the user withdrawal feature is privacy reservation by default.

Ethereum protocol changes required

Other changes included are the implementation of a fork selection facility inclusion list (focus) and the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 7701.

The EIP-7701 allows privacy protocols to work without the need for relays or public broadcasting stations. This simplifies the development and maintenance of this type of protocol.

In this context, a relay is an intermediary or node responsible for accepting and forwarding transactions. Broadcasters, on the other hand, are responsible for exposing transactions to the public blockchain.

EIP-7701 divides Ethereum transactions into phases, allowing native third parties to pay the fees at the correct stage. This means that there is no need for a relay to accept a user’s private transactions to be broadcast anonymously by another entity.

The focus, on the other hand, prevents censorship of transactions that include transactions. The relevance is that anonymized transactions are likely at a very high risk of becoming victims of attempted censorship.

Related: Financial privacy and regulations can coexist with ZK Proof – Vitalik Buterin

Infrastructure changes required

As proposed by Buterin, a short-term solution to address the privacy restrictions of current Remote Procedure Call (RPC) systems used to interact with blockchain is the implementation of a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE).

TEE ensures that the code and data loaded inside the processor are protected in a secure area. “This allows users to interact with RPC nodes and get a stronger assurance that no private data is being collected,” says Buterin.

As a long-term solution, TEE should be replaced by a Personal Information Search (PIR) system. PIR is an encryption protocol that allows users to retrieve a particular item from the database without revealing which items were retrieved.

This allows users to retrieve data about blockchain content without the provider knowing what data is being shared. Buterin emphasized that it is superior because it offers a “cryptoguarantee.”

The co-founder of Ethereum argued that the wallet must be connected to multiple RPC servers. You also need to use separate RPCs for each DAPP and potentially use a mixnet. This is a privacy-enhancing technology designed to obscure metadata.

Other recommendations include the development of proof cohesion protocols for protocols that provide privacy. This will significantly reduce the fees for using such a system.

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