On stage at Devcon Vitalik Buterin presented Kohaku, a toolkit to enhance privacy and security in the Ethereum ecosystem.
The project is being implemented by the Ethereum Foundation with participation from key industry players and reflects Buterin’s growing interest in privacy as one of the top priorities for blockchain developers.
“We’re almost at the finish line. Now is the time to focus and get everything right. The same goes for security,” Vitalik noted.
He added that Ethereum still “lags behind” in terms of user privacy.
Kohaku is an open-source initiative aimed at enhancing on-chain privacy. It offers a modular structure that allows the creation of wallets focused on security and privacy, without the involvement of centralized services. In the future, the project may add mixers for network anonymity and browsers with support for ZK-technologies.
At the Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress conference, Buterin stated that Ethereum is moving towards a “privacy upgrade” to provide real security and privacy in everyday life.
The project’s GitHub page states that Kohaku is still under development. Currently, the repository offers software modules for protocols such as Railgun and Privacy Pools. They allow transaction data to be hidden while providing proof of the legitimacy of funds’ origin.
Privacy Pools, developed by the 0xbow team, uses “association lists” that prevent attackers from hiding stolen assets.
During the Kohaku wallet demo on November 16, a user was able to hide publicly visible funds using the Railgun integration. The project’s goal is to implement privacy by default in all Ethereum wallets, such as MetaMask and Rainbow.
“Privacy is freedom. It gives us the opportunity to live as we want, without worrying about how our actions will be judged by various centralized and decentralized structures, from political to social,” Buterin explained.
Privacy as a priority
In addition to Buterin’s increasingly vocal statements about privacy as a basic right, the Ethereum Foundation is also strengthening its focus on this topic in its own research and development.
Read also: VanEck launches Solana-ETF on Nasdaq with zero commission and a bet on institutions
Last month, the foundation launched the Privacy Cluster, a team of 47 researchers, engineers, and cryptographers whose goal is to make privacy a fundamental property of the Ethereum network.
And in September, the Privacy & Scaling Explorations division was renamed to Privacy Stewards of Ethereum, signaling a shift from theoretical developments to solving practical problems. The team is now focused on implementing features such as private voting and confidential DeFi.
