Privacy on Ethereum isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore – it’s becoming table stakes.

Whether you’re sniping meme coin launches, protecting your bags from jealous eyes, avoiding MEV bots, or just keeping your on-chain activity private, the tools are finally maturing.

Wesley (@wslyvh), who runs Privacy Experience at PrivacyEthereum and helps organize Ethereum events, dropped one of the cleanest breakdowns I’ve seen of the actual building blocks you can stack today.

He calls them the “core ingredients” and says to “mix for best results 🧑‍🍳”. Chef’s kiss.

Here’s every piece, explained plainly, with the projects actually shipping right now.

Anonymity Pools / Mixers & Shielded Pools

The classic way to break on-chain links.

You deposit funds into a big pool, then withdraw to a different address. Outside observers can see deposits and withdrawals but can’t prove which deposit matches which withdrawal (as long as enough people are using it).

Shielded pools take it further – you can hold and move funds entirely inside the pool without ever withdrawing publicly.

Real-world degen use: Buy a meme coin with clean funds so your main wallet history doesn’t scream “I aped this rug”.

Live examples:

• Tornado Cash (still the OG, nova pools still work on multiple chains)
• Privacy Pools (@0xprivacypools) – compliance-friendly version
• Railgun (@RAILGUN_Project) – shielded balances + DeFi inside the shield, works everywhere

Stealth Addresses

Every payment you receive goes to a brand new one-time address that only you know is yours.

Your main address never appears on-chain for incoming transfers. Huge for receiving airdrops, salaries, or OTC deals without linking everything together.

Current best options:

• Umbra Cash (@UmbraCash) – the original stealth payment protocol
• Fluidkey (@fluidkey) – pushing ERC-5564 & ERC-6538 standards so wallets can support it natively

Expect this in every major wallet by end of 2026.

Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs)

The magic that lets you prove something is true without revealing the underlying data.

“I have more than 10 ETH in my wallet” → prove it without showing the exact balance or address.

“I am in the top 1k holders” → prove it for an allowlist without doxxing your bag.

Getting real:

• ZK Email (@zkemail) – prove you received an email without showing contents
• ZK Passport (@ZKPassport) – prove citizenship or age without exposing personal data
• Rarimo (@Rarimo_protocol) – cross-chain identity proofs via EIP-7812

This is the layer that makes “selective disclosure” actually usable.

Mixnets

These hide metadata before your transaction even hits the chain.

Your RPC call or transaction broadcast gets routed through multiple hops with layered encryption and packet shuffling. Impossible for nodes or analytics firms to link your IP to the transaction.

Degen use case: When you’re about to send the fat snipe transaction, you don’t want Keystone or any block builder seeing your IP and front-running you.

Running options:

• Nym (@nym)
• HOPR (@hoprnet)
• Waku (@Waku_org) – the one Base and others are starting to adopt

Private Data & Compute

The holy grail: run actual smart contracts with private inputs and private state, but still get publicly verifiable results.

Think fully private DEX orders, hidden limit orders, private voting, dark pool trading – all on-chain without anyone seeing your position.

This is shipping now:

• Aztec Network (@aztecnetwork) – fully private L2 rollup
• Fhenix (@fhenixio) – FHE on EVM
• Enclave (@EnclaveE3)
• Shutter Network (@ShutterNetwork) – encrypted mempool for MEV protection

Stack everything together and you get something that actually feels private.

Deposit via mixnet → hold in shielded pool → trade privately on Aztec → withdraw to stealth address → prove holdings with ZK for the next allowlist.

2025–2026 is when this all starts clicking for normal users.

Wesley’s thread is one of the best quick references out there right now. Bookmark it, share it with your group chat, and start experimenting.

Privacy isn’t dead on Ethereum – it’s just getting started.