{
  "id": "54c2c60e79a0",
  "url": "https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/04/14/privacy.html",
  "title": "Why I support privacy",
  "note": "A reminder that blockchains allow for people to be anonymous by keeping wallet ownership unknown, but there is nothing private that the wallet can do. All transactions are known to everyone always. Privacy on blockchains is, right now, not existent. Here Vitalik Buterin shares his views on why privacy is important.\n\n> At this time, it's worth stepping back and reviewing the question: **why do we want privacy in the first place**? Each person's answer will be different. In this post I will give my own, which I will break down into three parts:\n> \n> - **Privacy is freedom**: privacy gives us space to live our lives in the ways that meet our needs, without constantly worrying about how our actions will be perceived in all kinds of political and social games\n> - **Privacy is order**: a whole bunch of mechanisms that underlie the basic functioning of society depend on privacy in order to function\n> - **Privacy is progress**: if we gain new ways to share our information selectively while protecting it from being misused, we can unlock a lot of value and accelerate technological and social progress\n\nYou could shorten this all to one simple statement: **because it is the right thing to do.** \n",
  "voice": "mixed",
  "saved": "2025-04-17T07:19:29Z",
  "host": "vitalik.eth.limo",
  "kind": "page",
  "tags": [],
  "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/54c2c60e79a0/",
  "markdown": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/54c2c60e79a0.md",
  "issues": [
    {
      "number": 316,
      "slug": "316",
      "title": "Weekly Thing 316 / Blogroll, CaMeL, Insider",
      "date": "2025-04-20T11:00:00Z",
      "section": "Notable",
      "position": 3,
      "url": "https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/316/",
      "page": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/issues/316/"
    }
  ],
  "connections": {
    "same_host": {
      "count": 14,
      "page": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/vitalik.eth.limo/",
      "nearest": [
        {
          "id": "4501cfbd0602",
          "title": "What I would love to see in a wallet",
          "url": "https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/12/03/wallets.html",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/4501cfbd0602/"
        },
        {
          "id": "ec833f7988ec",
          "title": "Scaling Ethereum L1 and L2s in 2025 and beyond",
          "url": "https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/01/23/l1l2future.html",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/ec833f7988ec/"
        },
        {
          "id": "a035a964eb1f",
          "title": "Reasons to have higher L1 gas limits even in an L2-heavy Ethereum",
          "url": "https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/02/14/l1scaling.html",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/a035a964eb1f/"
        },
        {
          "id": "0b843ec6977d",
          "title": "Why I used to prefer permissive licenses and now favor copyleft",
          "url": "https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/07/07/copyleft.html",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/0b843ec6977d/"
        },
        {
          "id": "84bd0544b3ca",
          "title": "My response to AI 2027",
          "url": "https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/07/10/2027.html",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/84bd0544b3ca/"
        }
      ]
    },
    "same_week": {
      "count": 21,
      "nearest": [
        {
          "id": "6be87f728b23",
          "title": "ChatGPT can now remember and reference all your previous chats - Ars Technica",
          "url": "https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/04/chatgpt-can-now-remember-and-reference-all-your-previous-chats/",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/6be87f728b23/"
        },
        {
          "id": "9941beed6922",
          "title": "Using LLMs as the first line of support in Open Source",
          "url": "https://noumenal.es/posts/llms-for-user-support/WZb/",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/9941beed6922/"
        },
        {
          "id": "6f7945a6ff27",
          "title": "An Ars Technica history of the Internet, part 1 - Ars Technica",
          "url": "https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/a-history-of-the-internet-part-1-an-arpa-dream-takes-form/",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/6f7945a6ff27/"
        },
        {
          "id": "22e4469894b0",
          "title": "Trump Revenge Tour Targets Cyber Leaders, Elections – Krebs on Security",
          "url": "https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/04/trump-revenge-tour-targets-cyber-leaders-elections/",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/22e4469894b0/"
        },
        {
          "id": "0ad84f794c58",
          "title": "$70 Million in 60 Seconds: How Insider Information Helped Someone 28x Their Money",
          "url": "https://www.dataandpolitics.net/70-million-in-60-seconds-how-insider-information-helped-someone-28x-their-money/",
          "record": "https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/0ad84f794c58/"
        }
      ]
    },
    "mentions": [],
    "mentioned_by": [],
    "saved_twice": []
  },
  "elsewhere": {
    "wayback": "https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/04/14/privacy.html"
  }
}
