Vitalik Buterin’s Privacy Pool Proposal is Just the Beginning

By now, many in the crypto community are familiar with Privacy Pools, a project launched this year by Ameen Soleimani, a prominent developer and founder. As a former contributor to Tornado Cash, Soleimani’s goal was to “fix” this widely-used open-source solution for anonymizing transactions to make it more compliant with regulations.

The initial teaser, released in March, was based on a concept first introduced by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in 2022. However, it initially struggled to gain traction within the crypto community. Interest surged only recently after Buterin published an academic paper on the topic, which generated more buzz across social media.

Hugo Volz Oliveira is a founding member of the New Economy Institute, an advocacy group dedicated to promoting a more crypto-friendly environment in Portugal and Europe. Oliveira entered the crypto space in 2017 as the lead analyst at the London Block Exchange. He has also played a key role in establishing the Portuguese Federation of Associations for the Crypto Economy and in organizing The Reg3 Conference in collaboration with the EU Crypto Initiative.