We are thrilled to announce the finalists of the #2023privacyproof annual privacy tech poll made by the community. Enthusiasts, developers, researchers, cryptographers, cypherpunks, and community builders from the Logos, DarkFi, Swarm, HOPR, Railgun_, Nym, Circles UBI, Rotki, Puzzle, Espresso Systems & many other organisations made their choice.

The community contributed with the diverse selections from IMEI-anon solutions to progress with Fully Homomorphic Encryption. Mentioning regulators, CEXs, projects, and personalities.

Observation: community articulated demand for the resilient privacy stack that could be built over time (like L1s, mixnet & OS) while having practical use-case specific solutions (“transactional privacy”) here & now - Railgun

Top-voted: DarkFi

Runner up*:* Railgun

Honourable mention: Nym & Graphene OS (the same # of votes)

Summary

1. DarkFi

2. Railgun

3. Graphene OS / Nym

Explore longlist: “Projects”

Observation: the tornado Cash case resonated with the majority of contributors. It goes hand in hand with privacy coins delisting from exchanges. The privacy community feels big regulatory pressure negatively impacting their human right. On a positive note, project-centric progress or regulatory-centric cases were mentioned as a counter-argument to the above-mentioned pressure.

Summary

1. Tornado Cash case

2. Privacy coins being actively delisted from CEXs

3. Sismo shutting down

note: Tornado Case case was 4x times more often mentioned compared to Privacy coins delisting. It covers a broad range of “news” (devs arrest, Pertsev release via bail).

Explore longlist: “News & Events”

new research, protocols, or approaches supporting privacy

Observation: technological progress is the backbone of privacy. Zero-knowledge proofs, Fully Homomorphic Encryption, hardware acceleration and intents promise potential breakthroughs in privacy. However, some of them originated within the Big Tech R&D or are backed by compliant VCs. Diversity (78 different submissions!) in projects & papers has proven a great range of research interests within the privacy market.

Top-voted: DarkFi stack

Runner up Privacy Pools

Honourable mention: progress with Zero-knowledge proofs

Summary

1. DarkFi

2. Privacy Pools

3. Progress with ZKP

Explore longlist: “Innovations”.

any project, person, or organisation that sought to reduce privacy within the space.

Observation: anti-Arkham solidarity showed strong sentiment against massive de-anon practices on-chain. This contrasts with Chainalysis members contributing to the Privacy Pools paper. Additionally, the decentralisation ethos reflects an anti-government stance (especially, emerging from the EU & The USA).

Anti-privacy doxxer of the year: Arkham

Runner up: Ledger

Summary

1. Arkham

2. Ledger

3. Worldcoin / Metamask / Friend.tech (same # of votes)

Explore longlist: “Doxxer”

Explore longlists (full unique selections made by the community) in 4 different categories:

1. The “Projects” category selection.

2. “News & Events”

3. “Innovations”

4. “Doxxer”

Huge thanks to everyone who contributed & supported the #2023privacyproof. Especially, Alan from Railgun & Nicklaz who boosted the early stage.

#2023privacypoll clearly proves solidarity between different actors from developers to community builders. They actively support the creation of the privacy stack for web3 & are worried about the criminalisation of open-source code development.

Meanwhile, emerging papers & extensive PoCs within privacy are proving that the right to privacy can be empowered by researchers from the USA to China. The question remains open: how to bridge builders & progressive pro-crypto legislation?

1. We outreached to the majority of privacy projects, communities & activists.

2. Some of them contributed to the poll (while the majority were on vacation, had “ticketing”-type of community communication on Discord or ignored activity in general) - we gathered selections via DMs on X, Matrix, Twitter, Telegram.

3. We published the majority on Twitter, but some opted to remain anonymous in their submission.

Disclaimer: #2023privacyproof doesn’t represent an accurate “voice” of the market, but serves to highlight a plurality of takes on privacy. Explore projects, news & and anti-privacy services within a personal quest for privacy.

Want to contribute to the privacy market building: follow us on Git, X or Matrix

We are thrilled to announce the finalists of the #2023privacyproof annual privacy tech poll made by the community. Enthusiasts, developers, researchers, cryptographers, cypherpunks, and community builders from the Logos, DarkFi, Swarm, HOPR, Railgun_, Nym, Circles UBI, Rotki, Puzzle, Espresso Systems & many other organisations made their choice.

The community contributed with the diverse selections from IMEI-anon solutions to progress with Fully Homomorphic Encryption. Mentioning regulators, CEXs, projects, and personalities.

Observation: community articulated demand for the resilient privacy stack that could be built over time (like L1s, mixnet & OS) while having practical use-case specific solutions (“transactional privacy”) here & now - Railgun

Top-voted: DarkFi

Runner up*:* Railgun

Honourable mention: Nym & Graphene OS (the same # of votes)

Summary

1. DarkFi

2. Railgun

3. Graphene OS / Nym

Explore longlist: “Projects”

Observation: the tornado Cash case resonated with the majority of contributors. It goes hand in hand with privacy coins delisting from exchanges. The privacy community feels big regulatory pressure negatively impacting their human right. On a positive note, project-centric progress or regulatory-centric cases were mentioned as a counter-argument to the above-mentioned pressure.

Summary

1. Tornado Cash case

2. Privacy coins being actively delisted from CEXs

3. Sismo shutting down

note: Tornado Case case was 4x times more often mentioned compared to Privacy coins delisting. It covers a broad range of “news” (devs arrest, Pertsev release via bail).

Explore longlist: “News & Events”

new research, protocols, or approaches supporting privacy

Observation: technological progress is the backbone of privacy. Zero-knowledge proofs, Fully Homomorphic Encryption, hardware acceleration and intents promise potential breakthroughs in privacy. However, some of them originated within the Big Tech R&D or are backed by compliant VCs. Diversity (78 different submissions!) in projects & papers has proven a great range of research interests within the privacy market.

Top-voted: DarkFi stack

Runner up Privacy Pools

Honourable mention: progress with Zero-knowledge proofs

Summary

1. DarkFi

2. Privacy Pools

3. Progress with ZKP

Explore longlist: “Innovations”.

any project, person, or organisation that sought to reduce privacy within the space.

Observation: anti-Arkham solidarity showed strong sentiment against massive de-anon practices on-chain. This contrasts with Chainalysis members contributing to the Privacy Pools paper. Additionally, the decentralisation ethos reflects an anti-government stance (especially, emerging from the EU & The USA).

Anti-privacy doxxer of the year: Arkham

Runner up: Ledger

Summary

1. Arkham

2. Ledger

3. Worldcoin / Metamask / Friend.tech (same # of votes)

Explore longlist: “Doxxer”

Explore longlists (full unique selections made by the community) in 4 different categories:

1. The “Projects” category selection.

2. “News & Events”

3. “Innovations”

4. “Doxxer”

Huge thanks to everyone who contributed & supported the #2023privacyproof. Especially, Alan from Railgun & Nicklaz who boosted the early stage.

#2023privacypoll clearly proves solidarity between different actors from developers to community builders. They actively support the creation of the privacy stack for web3 & are worried about the criminalisation of open-source code development.

Meanwhile, emerging papers & extensive PoCs within privacy are proving that the right to privacy can be empowered by researchers from the USA to China. The question remains open: how to bridge builders & progressive pro-crypto legislation?

1. We outreached to the majority of privacy projects, communities & activists.

2. Some of them contributed to the poll (while the majority were on vacation, had “ticketing”-type of community communication on Discord or ignored activity in general) - we gathered selections via DMs on X, Matrix, Twitter, Telegram.

3. We published the majority on Twitter, but some opted to remain anonymous in their submission.

Disclaimer: #2023privacyproof doesn’t represent an accurate “voice” of the market, but serves to highlight a plurality of takes on privacy. Explore projects, news & and anti-privacy services within a personal quest for privacy.

Want to contribute to the privacy market building: follow us on Git, X or Matrix