Privacy is normal, but the word privacy is a mistake.

Sharing information is necessary for our daily lives.

When I buy coffee, I need to share which coffee I want with the shop.
When I request a wire, I need to share the recipient’s wiring details with the bank.
When I buy new clothes online, I need to share my shipping address with the merchant.

When people say they want privacy, they don’t mean that they want to hide anything. What people really want is to not share more than what’s really necessary.

When I buy coffee, I don’t want to share my name with the shop,
because I don’t think it will make the coffee taste better.
When I request a wire, I don’t share the reason for the transfer with the bank,
because it has nothing to do with how wiring works.
When I buy clothes online, I don’t share my home address with the merchant,
I rather share the address of a pick-up station.

We are born with the freedom to share our own information, with whoever we want,
for the purposes we care about – and to add value to our lives.

And this freedom is only possible when we can choose
what information we share, with whom, and for what purposes.

In the real world, we have more control over our own information
and we have more alternatives we can choose from.

We can choose to go to another coffee shop,
we can choose to use cash instead of a bank,
we can choose to shop for clothes at a local store
– we can stay home with our blinds down,
and we can choose to go out and hang with the ones we love.

And things shouldn't be any different in the digital world.
But – right now – they are.

The applications we use on our phones and laptops,
or the financial services we use to store, exchange,
or transfer economic value – they’re all built on rails
that take away people’s control over their own information.

And this needs to change,
because the purpose of phone apps, banks, or the internet
was never to take away people’s freedom.

There's been a lot of progress in decentralized infrastructure.

The Bitcoin protocol introduced the rails for a service where people could pay each other directly across any borders – without having to show their IDs to anyone.

The Zcash protocol introduced a way for people to pay each other directly across any borders – without having to share their personal information on the blockchain.

The Namada protocol introduces the rails for people to use applications across blockchains – without having to share their personal information.

More and more individuals and organizations
are funding technologies like Bitcoin, Zcash, and Namada.

A lot of progress has been made – but the word privacy is still a mistake.

Zcash is not a privacy coin.
Namada is not a privacy chain.

They are not for hiding information.

They are for restoring our freedom to share our own information
with whoever we want, for the purposes we care about, to add value to our lives
– and the ones we love.

Privacy is normal, and so is your freedom to share.

You are born with the right
and freedom to reveal.

No one, not even banks or governments
have the right to take this freedom away.

All we can do is to build the tech to restore
what should’ve been there from the beginning.

But the choice of using this freedom
is in your hands, and your hands only.