Ethereum (ETH) users could soon benefit from improved and enhanced privacy thanks to Stealth Addresses. Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, wrote a blog post in which he explains how stealth addresses could help blockchain users become more private when they use different networks. But what are Stealth Addresses?
What are Stealth Addresses?
In a blog post released by Vitalik Buterin, he outlines the main details of how Stealth Addresses could be one of the best solutions to face the current challenges in terms of privacy for Ethereum users.
Nowadays, blockchain networks have become very popular. It is possible to use Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) to send and receive funds all around the world. Thanks to blockchain technology, users don’t have to rely on a centralized authority to process financial transactions.
However, there is an issue affecting more of these blockchain networks. They are transparent and public. Users rely on pseudonyms in order to execute these transfers. But these pseudonyms (addresses) can be linked and easily associated with IP addresses, individuals, or companies. Therefore, privacy is not as strong as many would like.
An incomplete guide to stealth addresses:https://t.co/21Q18BrD30
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 20, 2023
This is why Buterin is now suggesting and proposing the use of stealth addresses that could help improve privacy on-chain. There seem to be multiple ways to create opaque public addresses. These methods involve the use of elliptic curve cryptography, opaque public addresses, and quantum-resistant solutions.
The positive thing about stealth addresses is that they could be implemented in the near future, improving the privacy that users have while using Ethereum.
Vitalik Buterin wrote about it:
“Basic stealth addresses can be implemented fairly quickly today and could be a significant boost to practical user privacy on Ethereum. They do require some work on the wallet side to support them. That said, it is my view that wallets should start moving toward a more natively multi-address model.”
These addresses could soon rely on zero-knowledge proof, one of the best ways to add privacy features to blockchain networks. This technology was implemented many years ago by ZCash (ZEC) and it has then been used to perform secure and private transactions using blockchain technology.
Now, it will be a moment for Ethereum developers and the whole community to decide how and when to implement these addresses. It will be necessary for them to find a way to clearly take these ideas into reality by adding them to Ethereum.
According to CoinGecko, Ethereum is currently being traded at around $1,633 and it has a market capitalization of $196 billion. This makes Ethereum the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world after Bitcoin.
It is worth pointing out that despite the fact that Bitcoin does not have stealth addresses, it is more private than Ethereum. Litecoin, instead, is the most privacy-focused of these three digital currencies. Last year, Litecoin developers were able to integrate Confidential Transactions into LTC; making it more secure and private for users to send and receive transactions.
