50+ privacy enthusiasts participated in our #2023privacyproof selection of the best pro-privacy projects, key news, innovation & anti-privacy doxxers. And we publish a longlist to explore highlighted initiatives.

The privacy market in web3 matures every year. New research papers, projects, demos, and events are delivered. We want to give the privacy community a voice & celebrate annual privacy contributions worldwide.

Note*: The longlist will be updated till our shortlist is published (mid-Jan, 24).*

Longlist

Pro-privacy project/product of 2023

total: 27 projects

• Waku

• Brume Wallet

• ZKP2P

• Web3 Privacy Now

• Railgun_

• Skiff

• Trocador

• Nym

• Signal

• LunarDAO

• DarkFi

• Raspi 5

• Messier

• LXMF (Reticulum)

• NitroWall NW750

• Molly

• Secret Network

• HOPR

• Penumbra

• Logos

• RPCh

• Brave

• Zupass

• GrapheneOS

• BananaHackers.net Wallace Toolbox IMEI changer

• Anon Aadhar

Contribution examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Major news or event

total: 42 news & events

• Harper v. Werfel

• EthBrno cancelled

• KZG Ceremony

• So many Web3 privacy-focused hackathons in 2023

• Signal support for usernames

• Ledger SIM swap attack

• The ETHRome hackathon

• The Web3Privacy Now conference in Rome

• Monerotopia in Mexico City and Prague

• KYC being enforced on Bitcoin miners

• Ethereum nodes censoring transactions from OFAC lists

• Tornado Devs Arrested

• Meta / Facebook products rolling out e2ee for their apps

• the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act

• CoinCenter lawsuit challenging Tornado Cash ruling is dismissed

• The proposal of the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act in Congress by Elizabeth Warren

• EU's MiCa rules for un-hosted wallets

• UK's FATF Crypto Travel Rule

• Changes on X/ Twitter

• Record-level health data leak from NZ

• Do-Not-Track is back on track!

• The introduction of new compliance regulations for cryptocurrency mixers

• Tornado Cash still working - the power of distributed frontends

• Alex Perchev's release via Bail in April 2023 and his trial

• Tornado Cash contract put on OFAC

• GDPR expansion to US companies collecting data of EU citizens to comply regardless of their location.

• The overall rise of privacy-focused projects as well as general public awareness

• Namada RPGF Airdrop

• Zcash Orchard to MIT

• DoJ vs. Tornado Cash

• Metamask IP logging

• Various Ledger issues (SIM Swap / Ledger Connect NPM attack / Firmware upgrade = mnemonic exposure)

• Countries start banning Worldcoin iris scanning over privacy concerns and predatory practices in the global south.

• Billions of Intel processors (i.e. most your devices and the Internet) have a critical weakness allowing attackers to steal passwords, encryption keys, private data, etc.

• ETHDam 2023

• Advances in Financial Technologies 2023 @ Princeton University

• Monero switching to full anonymity set membership proofs

• Ephemeral_001 by Black Sky Society

• OpenAI violating privacy

• Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands data breach

• Validators censoring blocks & RPCs logging IP

• NFT can actually doxx

The most exciting innovation supporting privacy

total: 51 projects & papers

• Blockchain Privacy and Regulatory Compliance: Towards a Practical Equilibrium

• Testudo: Linear Time Prover SNARKs with Constant Size Proofs and Square Root Size Universal Setup

• zkEVM

• Fully homomorphic encryption

• TLS Notary

• Universal Privacy Alliance lobbying group formation

• Unstoppable Wallets: Chain-assisted Threshold ECDSA and its Applications paper

• Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning (zkML)

• Hardware acceleration progress (e.g. Ingoyama's FPGA work)

• Homomorphic Encryption applications (e.g. Zama's fhEVM)

• Chaumian ecash projects like Cashu and Fedimint

• DarkFi’ Anonymous DAOs

• Intents x Anoma

• Proxy re-encryption

• Condition-based encryption

• Discop: Provably Secure Steganography in Practice Based on "Distribution Copies"

• TagAlong: A Free, Wide-Area Data-Muling Service Built on the AirTag Protocol

• Unlocking the lookup singularity with Lasso

• Zero-knowledge proofs

• Ledger and WalletConnect libraries without IP leaks solution

• Skiff

• Alephium

• Website fingerprinting attacks on Tor, using ML

• Development of a framework for making private cryptocurrency transactions compliant to reduce liquidity risks for users

• Implementation of advanced encryption protocols in private messaging apps

• Many elements of DarkFi beyond the L1 anon smart contracts: darkirc, tau and general holistic approach

• Lora protocol (LXMF)

• Coinjoin in Bitcoin Trezor

• Silk stablecoin

• Fhenix fhEVM

• http://privacypools.com + proof-of-innocence

• Fed acknowledging Tornado Cash

• Logos

• Brume Wallet

• Cyclefold paper

• ZK-email product

• zkp2p

• Hopr

• Aztec Sandbox

• Project Shutter

• Privacy-enhanced PoS'

• Derecho (proof-carrying data)

• Nocturne

• EIP-7503

• Helios

• CoFi by Informal Systems

• Nova IVC, and ECIP (by Liam Eagen)

• KZG Ceremony

• Zupass

• Federated ecash mints

• Zmok.io

Doxxer of the year

Any project, person, or organisation that sought to reduce privacy within the space.

total: 21 projects & regulators

• Ledger

• Friend.Tech

• WalletConnect

• Arkham

• Stefan Berger & the EU Parliament (MiCA)

• Limone.eth with the bot for points sellers

• Kid Security The US SEC

• Swedish government's Offentlighetsprincipen, the law that makes residential addresses and tax records public

• PimEyes

• MetaMask

• Ursula von der Leyen

• ATOR

• "Messier," for their Team KYC certificate through SolidProof

• Uniswap frontend

• MOVEit Data breach

• Worldcoin

• OpenAI

• HMRC

• Machi big brother doxing zachxbt

• The USA & EU

• All governments (W3PN note: count as one selection here)

Observations

1. Privacy enthusiasts pay close attention to the Tornado Cash case.

2. Some projects like Logos, HOPR, DarkFi, Anoma appeared in different categories (project + innovation).

3. Doxxers could be segmented into 2 directions: public (regulators) & private (like Ledger).

4. Ledger & Arkham are champions of doxxers category.

5. Key news could be positive & negative at the same time impacting the privacy market.

Want to contribute with your selection? DM us on X or Matrix

The next steps

29 Dec, 23 50 privacy community members sent their selections. A long list has been created & shared publicly.

15 Jan, 24 A list will be constantly updated until we reach two goals: 100 participants & the majority of the key pro-privacy personas contributions. A shortlist will be published.

Disclaimer: #2023privacyproof doesn’t represent an accurate “voice” of the market, but serves to highlight a plurality of takes on privacy. Explore projects, news & and anti-privacy services within a personal quest for privacy.