Ethereum News Today: Ethereum Bakes Privacy into Protocol, Aiming for Industry Standard

The Ethereum Foundation has formalized privacy as a core component of its strategic roadmap, launching a 47-member Privacy Cluster coordinated by Igor Barinov to advance protocol-level confidentiality. This initiative consolidates existing projects like Semaphore (anonymous signaling) and MACI (private voting) under a unified framework, while introducing new tools such as Kohaku, a privacy-preserving wallet and open-source SDK. The cluster aims to balance privacy with regulatory compliance, addressing institutional concerns while ensuring Ethereum remains a neutral base layer for decentralized applications.

The Privacy Cluster spans five key areas: private reads and writes for seamless transactions, portable zero-knowledge proofs for identity verification, selective disclosure systems, user experience improvements, and institutional adoption. Projects like PlasmaFold, a layer-2 solution for confidential asset transfers, and Kohaku's integration of zero-knowledge infrastructure are central to this effort. The Institutional Privacy Task Force, collaborating with the EF EcoDev Enterprise team, translates compliance requirements into technical specifications for real-world use cases in asset management, trading, and governance.

Ethereum's approach emphasizes embedding privacy into the protocol stack rather than treating it as an add-on. Research from the Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) team since 2018 has produced over 50 open-source projects, including zkEmail and Anon Aadhaar. These tools have become foundational for the broader crypto ecosystem, with hundreds of forks and integrations. The cluster's focus on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and private identity systems aims to make confidentiality a default feature, rather than an opt-in option.

Regulatory and technical challenges remain. Governments have scrutinized privacy tools like mixers, raising concerns about illicit finance. The Foundation's strategy of open-source research, institution-facing task forces, and user-centric tools is designed to address these risks. For example, Kohaku's peer-to-peer transaction broadcasting and private account abstraction aim to reduce reliance on centralized RPC nodes, while ZK Email and Anon Aadhaar enable secure recovery without exposing sensitive data.

The initiative aligns with growing institutional demand for privacy-preserving infrastructure. Over 700 privacy-focused projects exist in the crypto ecosystem, but Ethereum's dominance means its primitives often set standards for others to adopt. The Foundation's roadmap includes scaling privacy features through upgrades like Fusaka (December 2025), which will enhance throughput and data availability. If successful, Ethereum could redefine how decentralized applications handle sensitive data, balancing transparency with user control.

Source: [1] Coindesk (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/10/09/ethereum-foundation-expands-privacy-push-with-dedicated-research-cluster)

[2] Cryptonews (https://cryptonews.com/news/ethereum-foundation-forms-47-member-privacy-cluster-to-make-privacy-first-class-property/)

[3] Ethereum Foundation Blog (https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/10/08/privacy-commitment)

[4] Cointelegraph (https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-devs-unveil-kohaku-wallet-privacy-roadmap)

[5] Analytics Insight (https://www.analyticsinsight.net/ethereum/will-ethereums-2025-privacy-roadmap-help-it-dominate-institutions)