The Privacy Cluster is a coordinated research and development initiative launched by the Ethereum Foundation on October 8, 2025, to integrate privacy as a core feature of the Ethereum ecosystem. ^{[1] [2]} The initiative consolidates and expands upon existing privacy-focused work, uniting a team of researchers, engineers, and cryptographers to build open-source tools and standards. Its mission is to make privacy a "first-class property" of Ethereum, ensuring the network can be used safely and credibly by individuals, developers, and institutions. ^{[1] [3]}​

Overview

The Privacy Cluster represents a formalization of the Ethereum Foundation's long-term commitment to privacy, elevating it to a core pillar of the Ethereum roadmap alongside scalability and security. ^{[1] [2]} The initiative was established to address the inherent transparency of public blockchains, which, while beneficial for auditing, exposes sensitive user and institutional data. The Foundation's stated motivation is that widespread adoption requires giving users the option to transact, govern, and build applications without this exposure. ^[2] The cluster also serves as a response to growing concerns around global surveillance and increasing regulatory pressures on the cryptocurrency industry. ^[4]​

The guiding philosophy of the initiative is summarized by the principle that "credible neutrality, security, and openness are much more valuable to humanity when paired with privacy." ^[1] The cluster's work is encapsulated in the slogan, "Privacy is normal," reflecting its goal to make the use of privacy-enhancing technologies a seamless and default experience for all users. ^[1]​

The initiative employs a full-stack approach, developing solutions that span the entire technology stack. This includes pioneering new cryptographic methods at the research frontier, informing how confidentiality can be embedded into Ethereum's core protocol, building application-layer tools and primitives, improving the user experience (UX) of privacy protocols, and developing specifications for institutional and regulated use cases. ^{[1] [5]}​

History and Formation

The groundwork for the Privacy Cluster was laid in 2018 with the establishment of the Ethereum Foundation's Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) team, initially known as the "Privacy Stewards of Ethereum." ^{[1] [5]} This team focused on early-stage research and development in applied cryptography, creating numerous open-source privacy tools and primitives that became foundational to the Ethereum ecosystem. Over the years, the PSE team built over 50 open-source projects, and its code repositories were forked thousands of times, indicating wide adoption of its research. ^[1]​

Prior to the official launch of the full initiative, the Ethereum Foundation announced the new leadership structure for its privacy efforts on October 1, 2025. This established a two-tiered structure with coordinators for the overarching "Privacy @ EF" cluster and the embedded PSE team, signaling a move to make its privacy work more "impactful, coherent, and accountable." ^[6]​

On October 8, 2025, the Ethereum Foundation officially announced the formation of the Privacy Cluster in a blog post titled "Our Commitment to Privacy." ^[1] This announcement marked a significant expansion and formalization of the Foundation's privacy efforts, consolidating the ongoing work of the PSE team and launching new, coordinated initiatives. The move was widely reported by crypto and tech media on October 9, 2025, and was interpreted as cementing privacy's role as a formal part of the Ethereum roadmap. ^{[2] [5]}​

Organizational Structure and Leadership

The Privacy Cluster is an internal initiative of the Ethereum Foundation, comprising a diverse team of 47 top researchers, engineers, coordinators, and cryptographers. ^{[1] [4]}​

Leadership

• Igor Barinov: As the Coordinator of Privacy @ EF, Barinov is responsible for guiding the overall strategy and ensuring alignment across all of the Foundation's privacy-focused teams. ^[6] With over a decade of experience in the ecosystem, he is the founder of Blockscout, Gnosis Chain, and zkBob. ^[6]
• Andy Guzman: Guzman serves as the Coordinator of the Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) team. ^[6] Having been with the PSE team since 2022, he succeeded Sam Richards in the role and is responsible for leading applied cryptography, research, and development within the team. ^{[6] [3]}

Key Initiatives

The Privacy Cluster is organized into several key initiatives that build upon existing work and introduce new areas of focus. ^[1]​

Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE)

The PSE team is the foundational research and development arm of the Privacy Cluster. It continues its original mission of pioneering applied cryptography and creating open-source privacy tools. Internally, the PSE team is organized across four main divisions: Research, Product, Engineering, and Operations. ^[6] Its work serves as a reference point for many other projects both inside and outside the cluster. ^{[1] [2]}​

Institutional Privacy Task Force (IPTF)

The IPTF is a new, multidisciplinary group created to bridge the gap between institutions and the public Ethereum ecosystem. Its primary function is to translate the regulatory and operational requirements of large enterprises into concrete technical privacy specifications. The task force aims to help institutions solve real-world problems on public blockchains by providing them with compliant privacy solutions. Its target business areas include Real World Assets (RWA), funds and assets, payments, trading, oracles, and compliance. ^{[1] [3]}​

Kohaku

​Kohaku is another new project launched under the Privacy Cluster, specifically focused on creating user-facing privacy tools. It consists of two main components: a reference implementation of a new privacy-preserving wallet and an open-source wallet Software Development Kit (SDK). The SDK is designed to help developers easily integrate strong cryptography into their own applications. The ultimate goal of Kohaku is to make the use of advanced privacy features feel normal and accessible to all users. A public roadmap for Kohaku is available. ^{[1] [2]}​

Technical Focus and Projects

The work of the Privacy Cluster is heavily centered on applied cryptography, with a strong emphasis on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs). ^[1] Other core technologies mentioned include confidential transactions and decentralized identity solutions. ^[4] The architectural goal is to embed these privacy-enhancing technologies directly into Ethereum's Layer-1 core, providing a more robust and holistic solution than relying purely on Layer-2 or application-level privacy. ^[4]​

Core Research Areas

The cluster's research is organized into several key domains, including three core pillars for the PSE team:

• Private Reads: This area focuses on enabling individuals and institutions to query, authenticate, and browse information without being surveilled. The goal is to protect users from the harms of metadata leaks by default. ^{[6] [1]}
• Private Writes: This initiative aims to secure on-chain actions—such as payments, votes, and asset transfers—from unwanted disclosure, making private interactions seamless and inexpensive. ^{[6] [1]}
• Private Proving: This initiative centers on making zero-knowledge proofs portable, efficient, and usable in contexts like digital identity and client-side proving. The aim is to enable users to privately verify their identity, eligibility for a service, or ownership of an asset without revealing underlying sensitive information. ^{[6] [1]}
• Private Identities: This area involves the development of selective disclosure and zkID projects. These technologies allow users to protect their identity online by revealing only specific, necessary attributes about themselves rather than their entire identity profile. ^[1]
• Privacy Experience: This is a dedicated effort to improve the user experience (UX) of privacy protocols. The goal is to strip away complexity and make privacy tools accessible and intuitive enough to "feel normal" for everyday users, thereby encouraging widespread adoption. ^[1]

Notable Projects and Primitives

The Privacy Cluster oversees and builds upon several key open-source primitives developed by the PSE team:

• Semaphore: A protocol designed for anonymous signaling on Ethereum. It allows a user to prove their membership in a specific group and send a signal (such as a vote or endorsement) without revealing their individual identity. ^{[1] [2]}
• MACI (Minimal Anti-Collusion Infrastructure): A protocol for conducting private and collusion-resistant voting on-chain. It uses cryptographic techniques to ensure that votes are cast privately and that participants cannot easily coordinate to manipulate the outcome. ^{[1] [2]}
• zkEmail / TLSNotary: A set of tools that pioneered the use of zkTLS (Zero-Knowledge Transport Layer Security). These tools allow users to create a zero-knowledge proof about information from a web session (like the contents of an email or a transaction history) without revealing all the data. This enables trustless verification of off-chain data on-chain. ^{[1] [2]}
• Anon Aadhaar: A project that enables private and anonymous identity verification using India's national biometric ID system, Aadhaar. It allows Indian citizens to prove facts about their identity without revealing the underlying ID number or personal data. ^{[1] [2]}