Vitalik Buterin Unveils Kohaku, a New Privacy Toolkit Pushing Ethereum Toward “Real-World” Security

Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, yesterday showcased his network’s new privacy framework, Kohaku, onstage at the Devcon conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The framework includes a suite of tools designed to increase privacy for users of the Ethereum network, with a particular focus on helping developers build privacy-preserving wallet infrastructure.

Buterin said Ethereum still isn’t where he’d like it to be on privacy (or security for that matter) and the release of Kohaku marks an important step towards strengthening the network’s privacy measures.

“We’re in this very last mile stage,” Buterin said, acknowledging that Ethereum “is still behind” where it could be in terms of user privacy. “It’s in this last mile stage where we need to put a lot of concerted effort into doing better. Same on the security side.”

Technically speaking, Kohaku is an open-source software development kit (SDK) that gives developers a modular framework to create decentralised, private and secure wallets. The project’s GitHub page shows that it’s still a work in progress, but already it includes support for privacy-enhancing protocols such as Railgun and Privacy Pools.

Eventually, Kohaku may support more privacy-enhancing features, including mixnets for enhanced anonymity and zero-knowledge (ZK) based browsers.

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First announced last month by Ethereum Foundation developer Nicholas Consigny, Kohaku will initially form the basis of a browser-based privacy-focussed wallet extension. The Ethereum Foundation will also create a reference implementation to help third-party developers use the framework in their own dApps.

Consigny explained that the primary purpose of Kohaku is to allow users to complete transactions while publicly exposing only the minimum necessary amount of data.

Kohaku aims to ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction, and is exposed to the absolute minimum set of risks needed for that transaction to happen.

Nicholas Consigny, Ethereum Foundation

Ethereum Committed to Enhancing Users’ Privacy

Kohaku is just one part of a broader strategy the Ethereum Foundation (EF) is following to harden the network’s privacy.

Last month, the foundation published a blog post titled ‘The Ethereum Foundation’s Commitment to Privacy: Privacy is for everyone’ explaining why privacy is now one of its top priorities and outlining its privacy roadmap.

“Ethereum was created to be the foundation of digital trust, one that is worthy of civilizational scale. For that trust to remain credible, privacy must be part of its core, the EF, along with dozens of Ethereum teams focused on privacy, are proud to support this cause,” the EF explained.

The EF also announced a new internal ‘Privacy cluster’ led by Igor Barinov and composed of 47 of the “top researchers, engineers, coordinators and cryptographers in the blockchain industry.”

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In addition to Kohaku, this group will work on a number of projects in conjunction with another privacy-focused organisation in the Ethereum ecosystem, the Privacy Stewards of Ethereum (PSE).

According to the EF, some of the projects the Privacy cluster is tasked with include:

• Private Reads & Writes: making actions like private payments, votes, and interactions as seamless and inexpensive as possible.
• Private Proving: making proofs portable and efficient so people can verify eligibility, identity, or assets without disclosing unnecessary information.
• Private Identities: selective disclosure and zkID projects that protect your identity online.
• Privacy Experience: improving privacy protocol UX and making privacy feel normal and accessible.

The EF says its commitment to enhancing Ethereum’s privacy comes down to its belief that “credible neutrality, security, and openness are much more valuable to humanity when paired with privacy.”