Ethereum Foundation Launches End-to-End Privacy Roadmap with Private Writes, Reads, and Proving

The Ethereum Foundation has unveiled a comprehensive plan to bring full privacy to its blockchain, aiming to make private on-chain activity as seamless and affordable as public transactions.

• Roadmap centers on private writes, private reads, and private proving
• Goals include low-cost private transactions, identity-protected data reads, and simple zero-knowledge proof generation
• Key projects: PlasmaFold Layer 2 privacy transfers, private voting research, confidential DeFi, and privacy-preserving RPC services
• PlasmaFold proof-of-concept planned for Devconnect in November 2025

The Ethereum Foundation’s newly named Privacy Stewards of Ethereum (PSE) has shifted its focus from experimental research to solving concrete privacy challenges. Team member Sam Richards, who compiled the roadmap, warned that without strong privacy Ethereum could become a backbone for global surveillance rather than a tool for global freedom.

The plan targets three core areas. Private writes aim to make on-chain transactions as easy and inexpensive as public ones. This includes PlasmaFold, an experimental Layer 2 design for private transfers, along with work on confidential DeFi and private voting mechanisms.

Private reads focus on letting users access blockchain data without revealing their identity or intent. To achieve this, PSE is developing privacy-preserving Remote Procedure Call (RPC) services that protect details such as IP addresses and account interests.

The third pillar, private proving, seeks to make zero-knowledge proof generation fast, private, and affordable on everyday devices. These improvements would allow anyone to create and verify proofs without specialized hardware.

PSE plans to showcase a proof-of-concept for PlasmaFold at Devconnect in Argentina this November. The team is also preparing a “state of private voting 2025” report and exploring additional private computation projects. Contributions from across the Ethereum ecosystem—including Vitalik Buterin and independent researcher Oskar Thorén—helped shape this multi-year roadmap.

Final Thought

If successful, Ethereum’s privacy initiatives could transform the network into a truly private settlement layer, protecting user freedom while staying compliant with regulatory requirements.