Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined a streamlined roadmap to enhance Layer-1 privacy on the blockchain network.
In a blog post on April 11, Buterin introduced a framework focused on improving user confidentiality without requiring significant changes to the network’s core infrastructure.
The proposal targets four distinct areas of privacy, including making on-chain payments private, partially obscuring user actions within decentralized applications, hiding read-access data from the blockchain, and anonymizing network-level communications.
Buterin stated that if these upgrades are implemented, they could usher in a new standard in which private transactions become the default.
He continued that while individual dApp activity may remain visible, the link between a user’s actions across multiple platforms would be obscured.
The Ethereum co-founder concluded that this approach would offer privacy from observers and infrastructure-level threats like compromised RPC nodes.
Key components
Buterin’s proposal begins with integrating privacy tools such as Railgun directly into Ethereum wallets. He argued that this would let users manage shielded balances without relying on third-party wallets, making privacy more accessible by default.
According to him:
“There should be a ‘send from shielded balance’ option, ideally turned on by default. This should all be designed to feel maximally natural from a UX perspective. Users should NOT have to download a separate ‘privacy wallet.’”
He also advocated for using a separate address for each dApp. While this approach could introduce user experience trade-offs, it significantly limits activity traceability across multiple applications.
To support this, send-to-self transactions must preserve privacy by default; a design Buterin views as necessary despite the added complexity.
Expanding on this, Buterin explained that such changes align well with existing efforts in cross-chain interoperability, where users already interact with various chains through separate workflows.
He pointed out that integrating these features into in-app wallets would help standardize private interactions without major architectural shifts.
Buterin also called for technical improvements, such as using TEE-based RPC privacy as a short-term solution and planning to transition to private information retrieval (PIR) when ready.
Additional recommendations include connecting each dApp to separate RPC nodes, advancing proof aggregation protocols, and supporting privacy-enhanced keystore wallets.
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