Vitalik Buterin's roadmap emphasizes integrating privacy tools into Ethereum wallets and using application-specific addresses

Quotes that support claims

“There should be a ‘send from shielded balance’ option, ideally turned on by default. This should all be designed to feel maximally natural from a UX perspective. Users should NOT have to download a separate ‘privacy wallet.'”

The roadmap addresses four key privacy forms by implementing various short-term and long-term solutions. These are focused on improving on-chain payment privacy, partial anonymization of in-app activity, privacy of on-chain reads, and network-level anonymity. Firstly, he advocated for integrating privacy tools into wallets. This would enable features like default “shielded balances,” allowing users to keep transactions private. The idea is to enhance privacy without requiring users to switch to a separate privacy-focused wallet.

Buterin advocates for integrating privacy tools in wallets and proposes dApp-specific addresses to limit user activity traceability.

He mentioned that the plan will focus on four major areas. They include private onchain payments, limited anonymity within decentralized applications, private data reads, and network-level protections. Currently, Ethereum’s public design allows anyone to trace the activity of a known address. As he pointed out, a single wallet can reveal a user’s full transaction history, the application they use, and who they interact with. Buterin stressed that while this openness supports trust and security, it exposes too much personal data.

“This roadmap can be combined with a longer-term roadmap that makes deeper changes to L1, or privacy-preserving application-specific rollups, or other more complex features,” Buterin stated.