50+ privacy enthusiasts participated in our #2023privacyproof selection of the best pro-privacy projects, key news, innovation & anti-privacy doxxers. And we publish a longlist to explore highlighted initiatives.

The privacy market in web3 matures every year. New research papers, projects, demos, and events are delivered. We want to give the privacy community a voice & celebrate annual privacy contributions worldwide.

Note*: The longlist will be updated till our shortlist is published (mid-Jan, 24).*

total: 27 projects

• Waku

• Brume Wallet

• ZKP2P

• Web3 Privacy Now

• Railgun_

• Skiff

• Trocador

• Nym

• Signal

• LunarDAO

• DarkFi

• Raspi 5

• Messier

• LXMF (Reticulum)

• NitroWall NW750

• Molly

• Secret Network

• HOPR

• Penumbra

• Logos

• RPCh

• Brave

• Zupass

• GrapheneOS

• BananaHackers.net Wallace Toolbox IMEI changer

• Anon Aadhar

Contribution examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

total: 42 news & events

• 

  DeFi Education Fund

  @fund_defi

  DEF is proud to support the industry by filing amicus briefs in precedent-setting cases, such as Harper v. IRS, which involves a John Doe subpoena to Coinbase that resulted in over 14,000 users’ private financial information being sent to the IRS.
  
  Our CLO @amandatums breaks down

  

  Amanda Tuminelli

  @amandatums

  Today, @fund_DeFi submitted an amicus brief in the Harper v. IRS appeal (pending in the 1st Cir) to ensure the court understands the unique Fourth Amendment concerns in allowing the government unfettered access to US citizen’s crypto tx history.

  18

  4:48 PM • Oct 20, 2023

• EthBrno cancelled

• KZG Ceremony

• So many Web3 privacy-focused hackathons in 2023

• Signal support for usernames

• Ledger SIM swap attack

• The ETHRome hackathon

• The Web3Privacy Now conference in Rome

• Monerotopia in Mexico City and Prague

• KYC being enforced on Bitcoin miners

• Ethereum nodes censoring transactions from OFAC lists

• Tornado Devs Arrested

• Meta / Facebook products rolling out e2ee for their apps

• the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act

• CoinCenter lawsuit challenging Tornado Cash ruling is dismissed

• The proposal of the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act in Congress by Elizabeth Warren

• EU's MiCa rules for un-hosted wallets

• UK's FATF Crypto Travel Rule

• Changes on X/ Twitter

• Record-level health data leak from NZ

• Do-Not-Track is back on track!

• The introduction of new compliance regulations for cryptocurrency mixers

• Tornado Cash still working - the power of distributed frontends

• Alex Perchev's release via Bail in April 2023 and his trial

• Tornado Cash contract put on OFAC

• GDPR expansion to US companies collecting data of EU citizens to comply regardless of their location.

• The overall rise of privacy-focused projects as well as general public awareness

• Namada RPGF Airdrop

• Zcash Orchard to MIT

• DoJ vs. Tornado Cash

• Metamask IP logging

• Various Ledger issues (SIM Swap / Ledger Connect NPM attack / Firmware upgrade = mnemonic exposure)

• Countries start banning Worldcoin iris scanning over privacy concerns and predatory practices in the global south.

• Billions of Intel processors (i.e. most your devices and the Internet) have a critical weakness allowing attackers to steal passwords, encryption keys, private data, etc.

• ETHDam 2023

• Advances in Financial Technologies 2023 @ Princeton University

• Monero switching to full anonymity set membership proofs

• Ephemeral_001 by Black Sky Society

• OpenAI violating privacy

• Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands data breach

• Validators censoring blocks & RPCs logging IP

• NFT can actually doxx

total: 51 projects & papers

• Blockchain Privacy and Regulatory Compliance: Towards a Practical Equilibrium

• Testudo: Linear Time Prover SNARKs with Constant Size Proofs and Square Root Size Universal Setup

• zkEVM

• Fully homomorphic encryption

• TLS Notary

• Universal Privacy Alliance lobbying group formation

• Unstoppable Wallets: Chain-assisted Threshold ECDSA and its Applications paper

• Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning (zkML)

• Hardware acceleration progress (e.g. Ingoyama's FPGA work)

• Homomorphic Encryption applications (e.g. Zama's fhEVM)

• Chaumian ecash projects like Cashu and Fedimint

• DarkFi’ Anonymous DAOs

• Intents x Anoma

• Proxy re-encryption

• Condition-based encryption

• Discop: Provably Secure Steganography in Practice Based on "Distribution Copies"

• TagAlong: A Free, Wide-Area Data-Muling Service Built on the AirTag Protocol

• Unlocking the lookup singularity with Lasso

• Zero-knowledge proofs

• Ledger and WalletConnect libraries without IP leaks solution

• Skiff

• Alephium

• Website fingerprinting attacks on Tor, using ML

• Development of a framework for making private cryptocurrency transactions compliant to reduce liquidity risks for users

• Implementation of advanced encryption protocols in private messaging apps

• Many elements of DarkFi beyond the L1 anon smart contracts: darkirc, tau and general holistic approach

• Lora protocol (LXMF)

• Coinjoin in Bitcoin Trezor

• Silk stablecoin

• Fhenix fhEVM

• http://privacypools.com + proof-of-innocence

• 

  Fabian Schär

  @fschaer

  Excited to announce that our new paper on #tornadocash and #blockchain privacy, will be published by the @stlouisfed Review! This is joint-work with @mat_nadler. Pre-print online:
  research.stlouisfed.org/publications/r…

  

  153

  7:19 PM • Feb 3, 2023

• Logos

• Brume Wallet

• Cyclefold paper

• ZK-email product

• zkp2p

• Hopr

• Aztec Sandbox

• Project Shutter

• Privacy-enhanced PoS'

• Derecho (proof-carrying data)

• Nocturne

• EIP-7503

• Helios

• CoFi by Informal Systems

• Nova IVC, and ECIP (by Liam Eagen)

• KZG Ceremony

• Zupass

• Federated ecash mints

• Zmok.io

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

total: 21 projects & regulators

• Ledger

• Friend.Tech

• WalletConnect

• Arkham

• Stefan Berger & the EU Parliament (MiCA)

• Limone.eth with the bot for points sellers

• Kid Security The US SEC

• 

  Eric Wall | BIP-444

  @ercwl

  there's now officially a situation in sweden
  
  this monday, a middle-aged swedish couple was tied up in their home and robbed by 4 masked men. they were physically abused and threatened with their own kitchen knives. they were tied up for hours and one had to be escorted to the

  3,527

  9:50 PM • Nov 8, 2023

• PimEyes

• MetaMask

• Ursula von der Leyen

• ATOR

• "Messier," for their Team KYC certificate through SolidProof

• Uniswap frontend

• MOVEit Data breach

• Worldcoin

• OpenAI

• HMRC

• Machi big brother doxing zachxbt

• The USA & EU

• All governments (W3PN note: count as one selection here)

1. Privacy enthusiasts pay close attention to the Tornado Cash case.

2. Some projects like Logos, HOPR, DarkFi, Anoma appeared in different categories (project + innovation).

3. Doxxers could be segmented into 2 directions: public (regulators) & private (like Ledger).

4. Ledger & Arkham are champions of doxxers category.

5. Key news could be positive & negative at the same time impacting the privacy market.

Want to contribute with your selection? DM us on X or Matrix

29 Dec, 23 50 privacy community members sent their selections. A long list has been created & shared publicly.

15 Jan, 24 A list will be constantly updated until we reach two goals: 100 participants & the majority of the key pro-privacy personas contributions. A shortlist will be published.

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.