New roadmap solves Ethereum's privacy challenges

If Ethereum cannot solve the privacy problem, especially in the process of its large-scale application development, it may become a "monitoring infrastructure." The team, now called Ethereum Privacy Manager (PSE), is actively responding to these challenges through the newly released roadmap and key goals. Researchers are moving from cryptography experiments to implementing practical privacy solutions. The new roadmap mainly revolves around three directions: privacy writing, privacy reading and privacy proof. Privacy writing is designed to make on-chain privacy operations (including transactions, DeFi, and voting) as simple and easy as public operations. Privacy reading focuses on preventing metadata breaches when authenticating or queries on Ethereum. Proof of Privacy is designed to make zero-knowledge proof more affordable and easier to run on mobile devices. As PSE digs into these areas, they plan to maintain a “problem radar” to map privacy vulnerabilities, an “execution map” to decide where to build, collaborate or monitor, and to develop a “public communication” culture to keep the Ethereum community engaged. The team currently has several ongoing or upcoming plans, including Plasma Fold, an experimental Layer 2 design that uses “zero knowledge folding” technology for scalability and plans to add privacy transactions. Kohaku is a wallet proof-of-concept project designed to natively support privacy sending through the privacy pool. In terms of privacy governance, PSE will release the “State Privacy Voting in 2025” report and continue to work with Aragon and other privacy voting agreements. In terms of confidential DeFi, PSE is working with the Ethereum Foundation’s EcoDev enterprise portfolio to form an Institutional Privacy Working Group (IPTF). In terms of network privacy, PSE plans to form a privacy RPC workgroup to support Oblivious RAM solutions in wallets and try to mix network-style transaction routing. In terms of privacy identities, PSE is working to develop privacy protection credential standards. Modular zk-snark wallet and non-linkable credential revocation. Client Proof involves researching efficient proof systems that can run directly on mobile devices to support new privacy applications. By enhancing privacy, Ethereum can prove that public chains are both transparent and protect user privacy. PSE has evolved into a mature privacy center dedicated to achieving this vision without monopoly, in line with the Ethereum Foundation’s role as a neutral coordinator. Ultimately, a network that can protect trillions of dollars of assets but exposes all transaction details is incomplete. Implementing privacy of write, read and proof is crucial for Ethereum to maintain its credible foundation as the "Internet of Value". The new roadmap shows that the Ethereum Foundation will pay more attention to privacy as its core issue.