Why I support privacy

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.

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:

• 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
• Privacy is order: a whole bunch of mechanisms that underlie the basic functioning of society depend on privacy in order to function
• 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

You could shorten this all to one simple statement: because it is the right thing to do.