Ethereum Foundation Boosts Privacy Research With New Dedicated Team - ETH Privacy Tools Expansion

The Ethereum Foundation is establishing privacy as a core component of its development roadmap, creating a specialized research cluster focused on private payments, identity solutions, proofs, and enterprise applications. Since 2018, Ethereum's Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) team has pioneered privacy research with innovations including Semaphore for anonymous signaling, MACI for private voting, zkEmail, zkTLS, and the Anon Aadhaar project. These technologies have become foundational references for developers throughout the ecosystem, generating hundreds of forks and integrations. The newly formed privacy cluster, coordinated by Igor Barinov, consolidates these experiments with new initiatives covering private transaction processing, portable identity proofs, zkID systems for selective disclosure, user experience improvements for privacy tools, and Kohaku - an SDK and wallet designed to make advanced cryptography accessible by default. An Institutional Privacy Task Force within the cluster addresses compliance requirements for enterprise adoption. The Foundation emphasizes that privacy is critical for Ethereum's credibility, noting that while blockchains are inherently transparent, mainstream adoption requires options for users and institutions to transact and govern without exposing sensitive data. With over 700 privacy-focused projects across the crypto ecosystem, Ethereum's standards often influence broader industry practices. The Foundation's balanced approach combining open-source research, institutional task forces, and user-friendly tools represents a deliberate strategy to advance privacy while addressing regulatory considerations.