Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress was a gathering of cypherpunks, privacy advocates, researchers, and developers who are building the foundations of a more private and secure Ethereum ecosystem. The congress brings together diverse voices from across the blockchain privacy landscape – cryptographers, protocol developers, activists, researchers, and educators – united by a shared commitment to advancing privacy as a fundamental right in the digital age and protecting the cypherpunk ethos within Ethereum.
5000+ attendees
100+ speakers
50+ organisations supporting
20+ sessions
Supporting organisations
100 Speakers from leading human rights projects
Tor, Freedom Of The Press Foundation, Ethereum Foundation, Protocol Labs, Electronic Frontier Foundation and many more!
The second Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress took place in Argentina, bringing together the privacy-focused Ethereum community ahead of Devconnect week. Building on the momentum from the inaugural congress, this edition focused on critical challenges facing privacy advocates and developers in the current regulatory and technological landscape.
The program featured deep technical discussions, policy debates, and community-building sessions designed to strengthen the privacy infrastructure of Ethereum. From foundational privacy protocols to cutting-edge research, the congress provided a platform for meaningful dialogue about the future of financial privacy and digital rights.
ETHEREUM CYPHERPUNK CONGRES #2 AFTERMOVIE
The whole event started by the opening speech from our very own co-founders. "Since day one, three years ago, we did our best to put values and principles that brought cryptography to be developed in the first place at the center of our activity and this helped us in creating and gathering amazing human beings that are advancing human freedom online". Sharing about Web3PrivacyNow, our values, the book, many events and much more that we managed to accomplish so far.
And then? Greetings from Roman Storm, developer of the open-source privacy project Tornado Cash, explaining that he was inspired in 2019 as an Ethereum developer to solve the problem of on-chain privacy. He says the project’s goal was simple but vital: to give ordinary people true privacy on Ethereum. Storm expresses deep gratitude to the community for their emotional, financial, and political support, saying it’s the reason he can keep fighting for privacy and defending open-source developers.
"Transparency for Tor is key" states Tor Project's co-founder Roger Dingledine in his presentation, focusing on lessons from Tor. Covering importance of anonymity and transparency, showcasing how Tor works and even user-cases showing how privacy and anonymity is essential for everyone, be it radical political activist, doctor in town and everyone in between.
Roger Dingledine delivered a keynote exploring the parallels between Tor's approach to internet privacy and Ethereum's privacy challenges. This session connected decades of cypherpunk wisdom with modern blockchain privacy needs, emphasizing the importance of building robust, censorship-resistant systems.
Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin together with Kassandra and Nick Consigny presents new set of primitives called Kohaku. Vitalik also shares more about what will Ethereum implement for improving their privacy and Kassandra and Nick Consigny goes more into Kohaku.
Presentation by Eva Galperin from Electronic Frontier Foundation where she describes fascism, cyberfascism, what it is and how it can be countered by us. Discusses IBM's and Microsoft's parts in helping with surveillance and urges people to build in decentralized manner and with marginalized people in mind.
ml_sudo chose to speak about sexism, explaining why women should work in trustless technologies, how indirect "ghost" sexism works and shows and how to challenge it and fight it. They explore the concept of "ghost sexism," a subtle and often deniable form of bias that disproportionately affects women.
They propose that trustless technology – systems built on transparency and user control – can offer a powerful tool to combat ghost sexism. They argue that by concealing gender or leveraging verifiable systems, individuals can bypass biased evaluations and create fairer outcomes. Ultimately, the speaker passionately encourages women and other underrepresented groups to actively engage in building and shaping this technology to ensure a more equitable future.
All that, while coining the term WACK!
The conversation centers on the critical importance of privacy in a free and progressive society. Vitalik argues that privacy is essential for individuals to live authentically, free from constant worry about how their actions will be perceived. He highlights how barriers to privacy—in areas like finance, communication, and even personal thought—are rapidly eroding, necessitating active defence. The discussion explores privacy as a foundation for individual freedom, societal order (allowing for whistleblowing and dissent), and technological progress, emphasizing that data needs to be used responsibly.
Vitalik and Naomi stress that privacy isn't just for those who have something to hide, but for anyone who deviates from the mainstream. They advocate for a shift towards proactive privacy adoption, highlighting the potential dangers of data abuse and the need for privacy-preserving technologies. The conversation concludes with a call to action, urging viewers to embrace privacy tools and become active participants in shaping a future where privacy is protected and individual freedom is upheld.
Joan Arus, co-founder of Sentinel Alliance, warns that developers building privacy-preserving or censorship-resistant tools can become targets of advanced government surveillance, drawing on his own experience leading decentralised governance and identity projects. He explains how he and his team were spied on, hacked, and infiltrated for years using mercenary spyware like Pegasus, deemed a national security threat not for wrongdoing but for the potential future use of their tools.
Arus also argues this represents an escalation of the Tornado Cash playbook, where developers are held liable for hypothetical misuse while governments deploy unaccountable surveillance that undermines encryption, privacy, rule of law, and democracy itself. He details how ambiguous terrorism laws, illegal espionage, media leaks, and judicial processes are weaponised against developers, citing real cases where such surveillance led to deaths. In response, he describes founding Sentinel Alliance to defend victims, raise awareness, pursue legal action against spyware firms and state agencies, and establish a developer legal defence fund, urging the community to share the story and support efforts to protect open-source developers and democratic freedoms.
Here Renata Avila from Open Knowledge Foundation shares her thoughts and wishes for Cypherpunk movement. Discusses emerging alliances in cryptography circles, autonomous philanthropy, but also talks about WikiLeaks as example of moment that could have shaken society and help form privacy oriented movement but in the end came up as a rather divisive one.
Sofia Celi, researcher at Brave reflects on the ethical and moral responsibilities of cryptography and security design, grounding her talk in Latin America’s history of state surveillance and violence, such as Operation Condor, to show how data collection has been used to enable repression.
She argues that modern digital technologies risk repeating these harms if designers ignore social context, and calls for “boring cryptography”: practical, accessible, low-cost systems built by listening to people first, especially those in underrepresented regions, rather than chasing theoretical elegance. She emphasizes expanding threat models beyond abstract network attackers to include real-world abuses like intimate partner violence and child surveillance, where everyday technologies can be weaponized despite benign intent.
Legendary cryptographer made a special video-message to all new & old cypherpunks announcing productive way of countering potential AI-challenges - a collaboration between mixnets xx.network & Nym.
How did the people like it?
Few words from our visitors:
Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #2 successfully brought together the privacy-focused Ethereum community during a critical moment for digital rights and blockchain privacy. Held in Argentina during Devconnect week, the congress provided an intimate setting for deep technical discussions, policy debates, and community building around privacy infrastructure.
The event highlighted both the progress and challenges facing privacy advocates in the Ethereum ecosystem. With prominent voices like Roger Dingledine, Vitalik Buterin, and Naomi Brockwell, the congress bridged different aspects of the privacy movement – from Tor's foundational work to Ethereum's cutting-edge cryptographic research and mainstream privacy education.
Key themes included developer protection in hostile regulatory environments, making privacy accessible to everyday users, and advancing the technical infrastructure needed for private transactions on Ethereum. The congress reinforced the cypherpunk values at the heart of Ethereum while charting a practical path forward for privacy development.
Web3Privacy Now: Mykola, PG, Coinmandeer, beth, Lucilia, Humbaba, Peter, BabyBit, Robert, Alisher, Kassandra, James....
Event Website: https://congress.web3privacy.info/
Web3Privacy Now: https://web3privacy.info/
Event Website: https://congress.web3privacy.info/
Web3Privacy Now: https://web3privacy.info/
Ethereum Privacy Ecosystem mapping
This research has been done in an attempt to visualise and map the Privacy Ecosystem of Ethereum with a human-centric approach, catering to the end-users first. We believe that privacy has to go beyond tribalism. Tools should be exactly that - tools, that masses can incorporate and integrate into their day-to-day lives. Our goal thus has been to structure this whole map with end-users in mind. The structure goes from organisations that are doing great work in advocating for privacy and digita...
The Neo-Cypherpunk Era begins now
Carrying the torch from the first generation into a new wave of internet liberation.
Week in the Privacy News: 46
Past and upcoming week has both been booming with amazing stuff going on for those interested in privacy.
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Support Week in Privacy
Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #2 Case Study
Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress was a gathering of cypherpunks, privacy advocates, researchers, and developers who are building the foundations of a more private and secure Ethereum ecosystem. The congress brings together diverse voices from across the blockchain privacy landscape – cryptographers, protocol developers, activists, researchers, and educators – united by a shared commitment to advancing privacy as a fundamental right in the digital age and protecting the cypherpunk ethos within Ethereum.
5000+ attendees
100+ speakers
50+ organisations supporting
20+ sessions
Supporting organisations
100 Speakers from leading human rights projects
Tor, Freedom Of The Press Foundation, Ethereum Foundation, Protocol Labs, Electronic Frontier Foundation and many more!
The second Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress took place in Argentina, bringing together the privacy-focused Ethereum community ahead of Devconnect week. Building on the momentum from the inaugural congress, this edition focused on critical challenges facing privacy advocates and developers in the current regulatory and technological landscape.
The program featured deep technical discussions, policy debates, and community-building sessions designed to strengthen the privacy infrastructure of Ethereum. From foundational privacy protocols to cutting-edge research, the congress provided a platform for meaningful dialogue about the future of financial privacy and digital rights.
ETHEREUM CYPHERPUNK CONGRES #2 AFTERMOVIE
The whole event started by the opening speech from our very own co-founders. "Since day one, three years ago, we did our best to put values and principles that brought cryptography to be developed in the first place at the center of our activity and this helped us in creating and gathering amazing human beings that are advancing human freedom online". Sharing about Web3PrivacyNow, our values, the book, many events and much more that we managed to accomplish so far.
And then? Greetings from Roman Storm, developer of the open-source privacy project Tornado Cash, explaining that he was inspired in 2019 as an Ethereum developer to solve the problem of on-chain privacy. He says the project’s goal was simple but vital: to give ordinary people true privacy on Ethereum. Storm expresses deep gratitude to the community for their emotional, financial, and political support, saying it’s the reason he can keep fighting for privacy and defending open-source developers.
"Transparency for Tor is key" states Tor Project's co-founder Roger Dingledine in his presentation, focusing on lessons from Tor. Covering importance of anonymity and transparency, showcasing how Tor works and even user-cases showing how privacy and anonymity is essential for everyone, be it radical political activist, doctor in town and everyone in between.
Roger Dingledine delivered a keynote exploring the parallels between Tor's approach to internet privacy and Ethereum's privacy challenges. This session connected decades of cypherpunk wisdom with modern blockchain privacy needs, emphasizing the importance of building robust, censorship-resistant systems.
Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin together with Kassandra and Nick Consigny presents new set of primitives called Kohaku. Vitalik also shares more about what will Ethereum implement for improving their privacy and Kassandra and Nick Consigny goes more into Kohaku.
Presentation by Eva Galperin from Electronic Frontier Foundation where she describes fascism, cyberfascism, what it is and how it can be countered by us. Discusses IBM's and Microsoft's parts in helping with surveillance and urges people to build in decentralized manner and with marginalized people in mind.
ml_sudo chose to speak about sexism, explaining why women should work in trustless technologies, how indirect "ghost" sexism works and shows and how to challenge it and fight it. They explore the concept of "ghost sexism," a subtle and often deniable form of bias that disproportionately affects women.
They propose that trustless technology – systems built on transparency and user control – can offer a powerful tool to combat ghost sexism. They argue that by concealing gender or leveraging verifiable systems, individuals can bypass biased evaluations and create fairer outcomes. Ultimately, the speaker passionately encourages women and other underrepresented groups to actively engage in building and shaping this technology to ensure a more equitable future.
All that, while coining the term WACK!
The conversation centers on the critical importance of privacy in a free and progressive society. Vitalik argues that privacy is essential for individuals to live authentically, free from constant worry about how their actions will be perceived. He highlights how barriers to privacy—in areas like finance, communication, and even personal thought—are rapidly eroding, necessitating active defence. The discussion explores privacy as a foundation for individual freedom, societal order (allowing for whistleblowing and dissent), and technological progress, emphasizing that data needs to be used responsibly.
Vitalik and Naomi stress that privacy isn't just for those who have something to hide, but for anyone who deviates from the mainstream. They advocate for a shift towards proactive privacy adoption, highlighting the potential dangers of data abuse and the need for privacy-preserving technologies. The conversation concludes with a call to action, urging viewers to embrace privacy tools and become active participants in shaping a future where privacy is protected and individual freedom is upheld.
Joan Arus, co-founder of Sentinel Alliance, warns that developers building privacy-preserving or censorship-resistant tools can become targets of advanced government surveillance, drawing on his own experience leading decentralised governance and identity projects. He explains how he and his team were spied on, hacked, and infiltrated for years using mercenary spyware like Pegasus, deemed a national security threat not for wrongdoing but for the potential future use of their tools.
Arus also argues this represents an escalation of the Tornado Cash playbook, where developers are held liable for hypothetical misuse while governments deploy unaccountable surveillance that undermines encryption, privacy, rule of law, and democracy itself. He details how ambiguous terrorism laws, illegal espionage, media leaks, and judicial processes are weaponised against developers, citing real cases where such surveillance led to deaths. In response, he describes founding Sentinel Alliance to defend victims, raise awareness, pursue legal action against spyware firms and state agencies, and establish a developer legal defence fund, urging the community to share the story and support efforts to protect open-source developers and democratic freedoms.
Here Renata Avila from Open Knowledge Foundation shares her thoughts and wishes for Cypherpunk movement. Discusses emerging alliances in cryptography circles, autonomous philanthropy, but also talks about WikiLeaks as example of moment that could have shaken society and help form privacy oriented movement but in the end came up as a rather divisive one.
Sofia Celi, researcher at Brave reflects on the ethical and moral responsibilities of cryptography and security design, grounding her talk in Latin America’s history of state surveillance and violence, such as Operation Condor, to show how data collection has been used to enable repression.
She argues that modern digital technologies risk repeating these harms if designers ignore social context, and calls for “boring cryptography”: practical, accessible, low-cost systems built by listening to people first, especially those in underrepresented regions, rather than chasing theoretical elegance. She emphasizes expanding threat models beyond abstract network attackers to include real-world abuses like intimate partner violence and child surveillance, where everyday technologies can be weaponized despite benign intent.
Legendary cryptographer made a special video-message to all new & old cypherpunks announcing productive way of countering potential AI-challenges - a collaboration between mixnets xx.network & Nym.
How did the people like it?
Few words from our visitors:
Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #2 successfully brought together the privacy-focused Ethereum community during a critical moment for digital rights and blockchain privacy. Held in Argentina during Devconnect week, the congress provided an intimate setting for deep technical discussions, policy debates, and community building around privacy infrastructure.
The event highlighted both the progress and challenges facing privacy advocates in the Ethereum ecosystem. With prominent voices like Roger Dingledine, Vitalik Buterin, and Naomi Brockwell, the congress bridged different aspects of the privacy movement – from Tor's foundational work to Ethereum's cutting-edge cryptographic research and mainstream privacy education.
Key themes included developer protection in hostile regulatory environments, making privacy accessible to everyday users, and advancing the technical infrastructure needed for private transactions on Ethereum. The congress reinforced the cypherpunk values at the heart of Ethereum while charting a practical path forward for privacy development.
Web3Privacy Now: Mykola, PG, Coinmandeer, beth, Lucilia, Humbaba, Peter, BabyBit, Robert, Alisher, Kassandra, James....
Event Website: https://congress.web3privacy.info/
Web3Privacy Now: https://web3privacy.info/
Event Website: https://congress.web3privacy.info/
Web3Privacy Now: https://web3privacy.info/
Support Week in Privacy
Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #2 Case Study
Ethereum Privacy Ecosystem mapping
This research has been done in an attempt to visualise and map the Privacy Ecosystem of Ethereum with a human-centric approach, catering to the end-users first. We believe that privacy has to go beyond tribalism. Tools should be exactly that - tools, that masses can incorporate and integrate into their day-to-day lives. Our goal thus has been to structure this whole map with end-users in mind. The structure goes from organisations that are doing great work in advocating for privacy and digita...
The Neo-Cypherpunk Era begins now
Carrying the torch from the first generation into a new wave of internet liberation.
Week in the Privacy News: 46
Past and upcoming week has both been booming with amazing stuff going on for those interested in privacy.
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