“It used to be that when you used a transparent blockchain ledger, if you're just a normal person, you weren't really worried about chain analytics firms who could track everything that you do. … But now with AI, obviously, a teenager just with access to an LLM basically can identify and track everybody using these things. So when you use a transparent ledger now, even if you're not a thief or a hacker or a criminal, you should be actually really nervous.”
sputnikintelligence.com
Asked why privacy is urgent in 2026, the Zcash co-founder argues AI has changed the risk for ordinary users of transparent blockchains, not just criminals.
…about privacy. Who I was on calls what six months ago pitching stuff for like, well, we're doing it. No, it only cares. No one, this will never matter. I was like, oh, wow. Okay. So Zcash succeeding is also inspiring for the rest of the world to care about privacy in a way that other things aren't.
…privacy very quickly soon after proof of stake. And not only did proof of stake not really come very quickly, but neither did privacy, with the exception of in Zcash. So, Sean, I'll ask you guys both this, but I'll start with you, Sean. Like, what's your case for why privacy is urgent these days?
Yeah, so it used to be that when you used a transparent blockchain ledger to transact, you know, if you're just a normal person, you weren't really worried about the fact that these chain analytics firms existed who could basically track everything that you do, associate all your transactions together, figure out your online activity based on that, for example, because you weren't really a real target. I was worried, but most like normal people weren't. And hackers and thieves. These are not normal people. Right. So hackers and thieves were always really nervous and careful about using these things. But now with AI, obviously, a teenager just with access to an LLM basically can identify and track everybody using these things. So everyone using crypto. So when you use a transparent ledger now, even if you're not a thief or a hacker or a criminal or any of that, you should be actually really nervous. So in the coming years, I think it's going to get much worse. It's going to get so bad, in my view, that you will have these just public. Databases, these free public databases that will have completely mined the blockchain of information, where every single individual who's been transacting on public ledgers has been quantified and tracked in…
the follow-on problem is it's not just your blockchain transactions. It's also every other data leak that in the world compounds like each Coinbase exchange leak. Oh, that's your address that gets tied to all this. Not just like your physical address. It's not just like there's one human in the…
So in myself and also a lot of listeners probably are very familiar with Ethereum's like swim lane roadmap. I'm wondering if there's something like that as scaffolding for knowledge for understanding the rest of the Zcash Roadmap, because that's really what I'm looking to understand here with you…
Well, I'd be curious to see how Dave would categorize it, but I would, I guess there's, in my mind, I think there's three camps or three like categories. There's the cryptography side. So there's trying to make the cryptography more secure and more efficient. There's the there's the kind of the…