Privacy feels increasingly essential yet unrealistic in today's hyper-connected world. A long history of data breaches has created a society desensitized to the erosion of its digital rights. Even in crypto – an industry that was built on the idea of total transparency – an ethos of confidentiality tends to be an afterthought.

Is there privacy on the blockchain? In short, no. Despite the fact that most people in crypto agree privacy is a good thing, the industry revolves around public networks that are transparent by default. Although there are some methods of preserving privacy, broadly speaking, addresses, assets, and other valuable data are assumed to be publicly visible by anyone.

Yet privacy is important for many reasons, especially in crypto. And privacy is about more than just preventing data leaks; it's about protecting a fundamental aspect of human existence. Here is why that matters. 

Privacy promotes security by shielding data to mitigate personal vulnerabilities

Security and privacy are sometimes portrayed as opposing values, particularly when authorities fight against encryption or advocate for backdoors. Curiously, all of these political efforts echo the Cold War-era "Clipper Chip" incident, where the U.S. government attempted to build backdoors into all encryption. Quickly, they discovered that weakening security for some meant weakening it for all. Protecting individuals from threats and vulnerabilities that are created by exposed personal data is a core tenet of privacy in political regimes as much as onchain ecosystems or any other potentially high-risk contexts. 

A choice between privacy and security is a false dichotomy that misconstrues how digital security works. Backdoors, mass data surveillance, third-party tracking, a lack of end-to-end encryption, and weak (or poorly enforced) data protection regulations increase attack surfaces for anyone whose data is exposed. And the reality is that weakening privacy protections does not just affect a few targeted individuals. It also creates gaping-wide openings for criminals to exploit the most vulnerable. Any indifference toward these issues results in less security for everyone. 

Privacy creates a space without the threat of constant observation

Limited or unreliable personal data protection is the status quo. This dynamic creates subtle behavioral changes in every human by causing them, for example, to potentially hesitate to research certain topics, express particular views, or explore new ideas, knowing that they could be traced. Over time, these incremental behavioral changes are difficult to account for, but the result is always the same: self-censorship.

Of course, transparency and scrutiny have their place, but this isn't true for every moment of our lives. Privacy protections enable the dignity required to work, learn, and grow without every action being tracked, analyzed, or monetized. Like toxic waste or microplastics slowly contaminating everything it touches, unrestricted data collection can eventually compromise authenticity and free expression itself. 

Privacy supports integrity by treating personal data as the constituent property of a person

Personal data is a valuable commodity, but almost everyone has grown accustomed to having their activities, thoughts, emotions, interests, and relationships collected and splintered into billions of data points that are mapped, sold, and studied without any meaningful consent, let alone compensation. Just as society depends on a litany of protections for physical integrity through common law and ethical frameworks, the digital society must demand the establishment of similar digital boundaries. 

Even in crypto, petabytes of data from millions of users on thousands of blockchains are collected and analyzed without any limitations by everyone from governments and businesses to hobbyist researchers and online trolls. Human experiences – offline, onchain or anywhere in between – should be private by default and only be commoditized and traded with explicit consent otherwise, society risks losing a core component of its existence. 

Better privacy is key to protecting the future

Privacy isn’t about hiding; it’s about self-determination, and without it, true autonomy is impossible. In an online and onchain world, providing personally identifiable information is almost unavoidable, and this data often ends up in hackable, shareable, or salable databases. Almost nothing is truly private or confidential. And as centralized data storage continues to grow driven by catalysts like the rise of large language model (LLM) training, incentives to abuse this data also increase. The need to prioritize privacy as a fundamental feature of society, technology, and humanity cannot be dismissed. Enshrining privacy into humanity’s digital world is the only viable path forward.

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