Vitalik Buterin Donates $765K in Ethereum to Privacy Messaging Apps

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has donated approximately $765,000 in ETH to two privacy messaging apps, Session and SimpleX—two apps looking to break past sector leaders Signal and Telegram.

Buterin has become an increasingly vocal advocate for privacy solutions in the crypto industry, as global policies have expanded fears of global surveillance states and irked those wanting to keep their personal lives private.

“Encrypted messaging, like Signal, is critical for preserving our digital privacy,” Buterin tweeted. “Two important next steps for the space are (i) permissionless account creation and (ii) metadata privacy. Session and SimpleX are two messaging apps pushing these directions forward.”

Session brands itself as a decentralized “end-to-end encrypted messenger” that aims to have “minimum metadata leakage”—metadata is information that surrounds a piece of content, such as an IP address or the time it was sent. It also has a token, SESH, which is up 371% on the day to a market capitalization of $15 million, according to CoinGecko.

SimpleX is also a decentralized end-to-end encrypted messenger, although its focus is on users owning their “identities, contacts, and communities.” Next year, it will introduce “vouchers” that users will be required to purchase and donate to communities, such as the Bitcoin community, to host the required servers.

“Neither of the two are perfect pieces of software,” Buterin cautioned, adding that both “have a way to go” to optimize user experience and security.

“Strong metadata privacy requires decentralization, decentralization is hard, users expecting multi-device support makes everything harder,” he continued. “Sybil / DoS resistance, both in the message routing network and on the user side (without forcing phone number dependence) adds further difficulty.”

Crypto and privacy

Interest in privacy-focused apps and crypto projects has surged in recent months, as it appears that governments are cracking down on the digital landscape.

“People are increasingly living their lives in digital spaces. These spaces are vulnerable to a level of surveillance that has no equivalent in the physical world,” Zac Williamson, co-founder of privacy-focused Ethereum layer-2 network Aztec Network, told Decrypt. “Privacy is important so that individuals can act as free agents in their online interactions, as opposed to being digital commodities whose data is harvested, sold to the highest bidder and weaponised against the user’s interests.”

Maybe most notably, earlier this year, the UK government started to require its citizens to show identification if they want to access adult content online, and is looking to introduce a digital ID scheme. Equally, on Wednesday, the Council of the European Union agreed to allow messaging apps to scan content to protect children online in what skeptics have labeled “Chat Control.”

Earlier this month, Buterin said that “privacy is hygiene,” following a security breach that impacted several major U.S. banks. In October, the Ethereum Foundation launched a new privacy team with 28 members, with plans to expand its privacy-related projects and initiatives.

Throughout this period, privacy-focused crypto tokens have surged. Zcash, for example, has soared a dizzying 793% to $501 over the past year, according to CoinGecko, despite a 27% decline over the past week.