- Wallets to integrate shielded balances and privacy tools like Railgun.
- EIP-7701 and FOCIL aim to support private, censorship-resistant transactions.
- TEEs and PIR will enhance RPC privacy and reduce metadata leakage.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has released a streamlined roadmap focused on improving Layer-1 privacy without altering consensus mechanisms. The plan introduces practical steps aimed at enhancing user privacy across four major areas: payment activity, in-app actions, data reads, and network-level behavior.
Ethereum Focus On Wallet Integration And Shielded Balances
The roadmap recommends direct integration of privacy tools like Railgun and Privacy Pools into existing wallet interfaces. Wallets should offer shielded balances and allow users to send funds privately. These features should be standard, eliminating the need for separate privacy-focused wallets.
According to the plan, wallet experiences must remain simple and intuitive for all users. Additionally, Buterin proposes defaulting to one address per application. This approach separates a user’s activity across different apps, preventing public linkages. The Ethereum system would also rely on privacy-preserving self-transactions to maintain this separation.
Improvements To Protocols And Metadata Protection
The roadmap also outlines the use of EIP-7701 and FOCIL to support private transactions without third-party relays. This combination would simplify development and increase censorship resistance. These technologies enable direct interaction with smart contracts using a flexible account model.
To protect metadata and RPC privacy, Ethereum wallets are expected to adopt Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) as a temporary measure. These systems reduce data exposure during RPC calls. Automata has already built a working model, but the roadmap calls for further testing and security strengthening.
Eventually, TEEs will be replaced by Private Information Retrieval (PIR) methods. While currently inefficient at a large scale, PIR offers cryptographic guarantees that improve user privacy. Buterin’s plan also includes hybrid models using TEEs and PIR to manage the state more efficiently until PIR performance improves.
Enhancing Network Anonymity And Proof Efficiency
To reduce metadata leakage further, wallets should connect to multiple RPC nodes and route connections through mixnets. Each decentralized application should ideally use a different node. If light client support is added, users can rely on a wider network of RPC servers.
Additionally, the roadmap recommends proof aggregation across different privacy protocols. This would allow multiple transactions to share a single on-chain proof, significantly reducing gas costs. Another proposal involves upgrading the Ethereum keystore wallet logic to preserve privacy. This change would reflect across private notes on both L1 and L2 without linking user accounts.
Once complete, the roadmap envisions a system where most transfers are private by default. On-chain activity remains visible within individual apps but unlinkable across platforms. Privacy protection would extend to adversaries operating RPC nodes and not just passive observers.The approach aims to introduce measurable privacy features without requiring consensus changes or extensive redesign of Ethereum’s infrastructure.
