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- Ethereum co-founder says, “privacy is not a feature, privacy is hygiene,” after potential data exposure at top banks.
- Buterin also raised concerns about X’s new feature, revealing user country data, calling it risky and non-consensual.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently commented on the likely data exposure involving top banking giants such as JPMorgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley. Speaking on this, Buterin said:
“Privacy is not a feature, privacy is hygiene”
Top banks were alerted by service provider SitusAMC that certain client data may have been accessed. The timing of Buterin’s comments made followers think that this was a criticism of traditional finance’s reliance on reactive security measures, instead of having built-in protection measures.
The statement comes just days after Buterin introduced Kohaku, a new privacy and security framework for Ethereum, as mentioned in our previous story. The feature aims to make privacy a default standard on the Ethereum network.
During a demonstration, Kohaku integrated with Railgun to conceal wallet balances in a single step. It demonstrated how privacy can be a function of the core layer. Speaking at Devconnect, Vitalik Buterin cautioned that the increasing influence of Wall Street could pose two key risks: the potential loss of core developers and pressure from large institutional holders to reshape the protocol.
According to Buterin, major financial institutions already operate with high-performance internal systems and are not looking to optimize Ethereum for their own throughput needs. The Ethereum co-founder added that the priority should be preserving Ethereum’s neutrality.
Buterin Warns Against X’s New Feature
Vitalik Buterin also raised concerns over X’s newly introduced feature that displays a user’s country of origin. X’s director of product, Nikita Bier, called it a measure to strengthen the platform’s integrity.
Responding to the rollout, Buterin said on Sunday that although the feature provides useful regional context, it also introduces notable risks. He said that users could also attempt to mask their real locations, while cautioning that broad exposure of geographic data could create new vulnerabilities.
Buterin wrote:
“I thought about this more and I think responders are right that revealing the country non- ‘consensually without offering any opt-out option, not even stop using your account, is wrong.
In most cases, revealing country still leaves a very large anonymity set, but there are some people for whom even a few bits of leakage are risky, and they should not have their privacy retroactively rugpulled with no recourse.”
Furthermore, Buterin recently raised concerns over quantum computing threats, which could pose a threat to the security of major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
