This Is Great for Ethereum Privacy! (A Little Too Great in the Eyes of Law Enforcement)

TL;DR

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has co-authored a brand new analysis paper exploring ‘privateness swimming pools.’

Vitalik’s soultion? ‘Privateness swimming pools,’ the place customers put their ETH into a giant shared account and all of it will get blended round (muddying the origins of every token/fraction of a token).

Sounds nice! However good luck getting the Division of Justice to provide it the inexperienced mild – as a result of so far as we are able to inform, it is nonetheless un-auditable.

Ethical of the story: That is nice for privateness! (A little bit too nice within the eyes of legislation enforcement).

Full Story

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has co-authored a brand new analysis paper exploring ‘privateness swimming pools.’

…however what does that even imply??

First, for these of you enjoying at house: all Ethereum transactions are public. If somebody is aware of your pockets tackle (aka ‘the crypto model of your Venmo username’) they will observe all the pieces.

Vitalik’s soultion?

‘Privateness swimming pools,’ the place customers put their ETH into a giant shared account and all of it will get blended round (muddying the origins of every token/fraction of a token).

Then, when customers wish to take their ETH out – the system checks that the funds aren’t being despatched to (or from) a identified prison pockets tackle.

To which we are saying:

Sounds nice! However good luck getting the Division of Justice to provide it the inexperienced mild – as a result of so far as we are able to inform, it is nonetheless un-auditable.

Which means, so long as you do not have current public connections to a prison pockets, you could possibly nonetheless use the system to cover/launder cash – and there is not any central authority that the IRS might power into giving up your account particulars.

Ethical of the story:

That is nice for privateness! (A little bit too nice within the eyes of legislation enforcement).