2026-01-11 16:24:18

Privacy is becoming an unbeatable competitive barrier in the crypto industry.

Recently, there's a perspective worth considering: when mainstream public chains have basically leveled the playing field in performance and cost, what will truly determine the winner? The answer might be privacy. It not only enhances the system's security attributes but, more importantly, can create a network effect with extremely high user stickiness—once users get used to a privacy-focused trading environment, the cost of migration becomes prohibitively high.

But there's a key premise here: privacy solutions must be decentralized and trustless, without relying on third parties. Privacy systems that depend on a single company or small group for maintenance essentially repeat the old path of traditional finance—users are always trusting some intermediary.

What should the truly sustainable direction be? To embed privacy capabilities into the infrastructure layer. From communication protocols to data encryption and transaction obfuscation, the entire stack needs to be restructured. Only then will privacy cease to be just a feature of certain applications and become a standard part of the ecosystem.

This trend will have profound impacts on developers, exchanges, and even the entire Web3 ecosystem redistribution. Whoever can master decentralized privacy first will hold the cards in the next round of competition.

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GasFeeCry

· 7h ago

Good point, but the reality is that most projects simply can't achieve true decentralized privacy. --- Decentralized privacy sounds sexy, but it's hard to implement in practice. --- Wait, isn't this exactly what Monero has been doing all along? Why is it only now becoming a competitive barrier? --- Underlying privacy is indeed powerful, but the problem is that ordinary users don't really need it. --- Haha, who is again promoting the narrative that they hold the next round of trump cards? How did that turn out last time? --- Privacy is indeed a barrier, but the costs will explode, and then it will be another story of a chosen chain. --- Relying on third-party maintained privacy systems is correct, but who bears the cost of decentralization? Users will ultimately have to pay. --- I just remembered, there was a coin that focused on privacy. Why is there no more noise about it now? --- Privacy at the infrastructure layer sounds good, but I'm afraid it will just become a playground for big players.

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liquidation_surfer

· 01-11 16:52

In simple terms, non-decentralized privacy is just traditional finance with a veneer, which is pointless. Wait, does this logic sound reversed? Who is actually implementing privacy at the infrastructure layer right now? When it comes to privacy, those brainless public chains that just compare themselves can go ahead and sleep. Projects that can't do privacy well, I really don't look favorably upon. The next breakout point might be this, but we need to find the right target. Whoever pioneers the foundation of decentralized privacy will take off; this is the right move. That's correct, but what about actual execution? Just talking about architecture is useless. You're right, I didn't consider the migration cost from that perspective. This is truly the moat.

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LightningAllInHero

· 01-11 16:49

Decentralized privacy is indeed the next breakthrough, but the difficulty of implementation has been seriously underestimated. Once privacy becomes standard, the days of exchanges will be tough. To put it nicely, it's a barrier; in reality, it's just about who can do this thing solidly first. Regarding privacy at the infrastructure layer, I favor the Zcash route, but the ecosystem needs to keep up. High migration costs and strong stickiness? Well, it's still because users are forced, with no other options. After privacy competition becomes fierce, it can easily turn into a new centralized trap, so we need to be cautious.

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TokenDustCollector