Ethereum Co-founder: Privacy Is Freedom
16 Apr, 2025 ● Crypto people
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has emphasized that privacy should be a central concern for developers, cautioning that assumptions around transparency and trust in global politics are becoming increasingly unrealistic.
In a blog post published on April 14, Buterin argued that privacy is crucial for protecting individual freedoms and countering the expanding influence of both governments and corporations.
He pushed back against the belief that more transparency is always beneficial, noting that this view depends on outdated assumptions about human behavior.
He explained that these assumptions include believing that global political leaders are “generally well-intentioned and sane,” and that society continues to evolve positively.
Buterin asserted that both of these beliefs are increasingly inaccurate.
He further stated that “no single major country” can be broadly said to meet the first assumption and pointed to a growing decline in cultural tolerance.
This, he claimed, is evident even in social media posts, including a quick search for “bullying is good” on X.
Buterin also shared his own experience, expressing discomfort about the lack of privacy in his life:
“Every single action I take outside has some nonzero chance of unexpectedly becoming a public media story.”
Although his remarks could be seen as implying that privacy mainly benefits people operating outside societal norms, he stressed that “you never know when you will become one of them.”
He predicted that the need for privacy will only grow as technologies like brain-computer interfaces evolve, potentially allowing automated systems to read minds.
He also pointed to the issue of automated price discrimination, where companies charge people based on how much they appear able to pay.
Buterin also spoke out against government backdoors in systems designed to protect privacy.
He argued these are inherently unstable and often lead to wider access beyond just state actors.
He noted that Know Your Customer (KYC) data isn’t only accessible to governments, but also to a variety of private entities, including banks and payment processors.
Telecommunication companies can locate users and have even been found selling this information illegally.
He warned that anyone with access may misuse it, and that any data collected could later be exploited by less trustworthy governments.
“From the perspective of an individual, if data is taken from them, they have no way to tell if and how it will be abused in the future.
By far the safest approach to handling large-scale data is to centrally collect as little of it as possible in the first place.”
Buterin pointed out that governments can access data with a warrant simply “because that’s the way that things have always worked.”
However, he argued that the amount of available data has grown dramatically, making this approach increasingly invasive.
He added that historical methods of privacy would remain intact even under stronger digital protections.
For example, in the 19th century, most conversations were never recorded.
To address these concerns, Buterin proposed a range of solutions primarily centered on zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs), which allow verification of data without revealing the data itself.
This allows for more precise control over who can access what information.
He mentioned a ZK-proof-based “proof of personhood” as one tool that could confirm a user is unique without revealing their identity, using documents like passports or biometrics in combination with decentralized technologies.
Another solution is privacy pools, which support Ether anonymization while remaining compliant with regulations.
He also referenced tools like on-device anti-fraud scanning that filter messages and detect scams or misinformation.
Additional suggestions included proof-of-provenance services for tracking physical goods throughout production using blockchain and ZK-proof technology — ensuring authenticity and transparency without compromising personal data.
The post builds on Buterin’s previously published Ethereum privacy roadmap, which outlines short-term protocol and ecosystem improvements needed to enhance user privacy across the network.
Sources:
https://www.telecomstechnews.com/news/fcc-fines-major-telcos-selling-users-location-data/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-co-founder-vitalik-buterin-privacy-is-freedom
https://x.com/search?q=%22bullying%20is%20good%22&src=typed_query&f=top
