Overview
- The new cluster consolidates privacy work across Ethereum with 47 specialists coordinated by Blockscout founder Igor Barinov.
- It extends the PSE team’s efforts dating to 2018 and supports Private Reads/Writes, Private Proving, Private Identities, Privacy Experience, and the Institutional Privacy Task Force.
- Kohaku, a privacy-first wallet and open-source SDK, is planned for a public demo and testing at Devcon in Argentina in November, aiming to enable private transactions with minimal reliance on trusted intermediaries.
- Research priorities span zero-knowledge proofs and application-layer tools like Semaphore and stealth addresses to support confidential payments, governance, and identity, with enterprise specifications translated by the task force.
- The Foundation frames the work as balancing strong privacy with regulatory compatibility through open-source research and institution-facing efforts, and one outlet reported a recent 1,000 ETH sale to fund R&D.