Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a research post suggesting the use of shadow addresses to improve privacy-preserving transfers. Buterin detailed that stealth addresses can be implemented quite quickly on Ethereum today and would significantly increase user privacy on the blockchain network.
Buterin suggests stealth addresses as a solution to privacy challenges in the Ethereum ecosystem
Three days ago, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted a blog post which gives a comprehensive overview of hidden addresses and the benefits of using them. Stealth addresses are a feature supported by other blockchain networks, such as Monero (XMR), to increase privacy and anonymity when making transactions. The network creates one-time addresses that are not connected to the user’s public address. In the blog post, Buterin insists that “one of the biggest remaining challenges in the Ethereum ecosystem is privacy.”
Buterin describes several different ways to generate cryptographically opaque public addresses with a key masking mechanism, elliptic curve cryptography, and quantum-resistant security. He also addresses “social recovery and multi-L2 wallets” and “separate spending and viewing keys.” Buterin notes that there are some concerns that could affect usability in the long run, such as the difficulty of social recovery. “In the long term, these problems can be solved, but the long-term ecosystem of stealth addresses looks like one that would really rely heavily on zero-knowledge proofs,” Buterin said.
While Monero uses hidden addresses, the technology is also featured on cryptocurrency networks such as Zcash, Dash, Verge, Navcoin, and PIVX. It is worth noting that some of the aforementioned cryptocurrencies have different implementations of hidden addresses. Concluding his research post, Buterin details that blackmail addresses could be easily implemented on the Ethereum network, and wallets should adapt to the changes. In general, supporting hidden addresses would require significant changes to the underlying architecture of Ethereum-based wallets and their current configuration.
For example, current wallets use a different address format. The lite client would need to generate new unique addresses for each transaction, and the wallets would need to be able to correctly encrypt and decrypt the transaction data. “Basic stealth addresses can be implemented quite quickly today and could be a significant boost to practical user privacy on Ethereum,” concludes Buterin. “They require some work on the wallet side to support them. That said, it’s my opinion that wallets should start moving towards a more native multi-address model (for example, creating a new address for every app you interact with might be an option) for other privacy-related reasons as well.” .
What do you think about the implementation of hidden addresses on the Ethereum network? Do you think it would significantly increase user privacy on the blockchain network, or are you concerned about long-term usability? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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