Etherealize: Wall Street as an incentive for privacy development in Ethereum
Date: 2025-09-08 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: CRYPTO PAYMENTS
Etherealize co-founder and president Danny Ryan noted in an interview with Decrypt that traditional financial institutions mastering blockchain technologies have strict requirements for data protection. In his opinion, it is Wall Street's interest that can become the driving force for the implementation of private transactions in Ethereum.
Ryan emphasized that the “complete openness” model, when all information is available to every participant in the network, is not suitable for the mass adoption of blockchains. It is unacceptable for institutional investors to have their strategies or treasury operations visible to competitors. Therefore, the demand for privacy is formed both at the level of private users and at the level of large players.
He compared this situation to a “Trojan horse”: at first, the requirements of financial institutions will make private mechanisms necessary, and then they will gradually become the standard for retail users. This process will allow the implementation of solutions that combine practical benefits with compliance with regulatory standards.
Ryan named the use of ZK-proofs as one of the key areas of privacy development in Ethereum. These technologies are already considered in the industry as the basis for scalability and privacy. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in the development of ZK-based tools in recent years.
Vitalik Buterin recently introduced leanVM, a virtual machine that uses ZK-proofs to reduce the cost of scaling the network. This step opens the way to more efficient use of privacy technologies in the Ethereum ecosystem.
However, competition in this area is intensifying. For example, Tempo (backed by Stripe and Paradigm) and Arc from Circle are working on their own blockchains, where privacy mechanisms are built into the protocol. Despite this, Ryan is confident that Ethereum will retain its leadership due to the ability to create specialized applications that provide privacy at a detailed level.
In addition, Etherealize recently closed a $40 million funding round. The funds will be used to build infrastructure for trading and settling tokenized assets using ZK proofs.
Thus, Wall Street's growing interest in the crypto industry may play a decisive role in normalizing private transactions and forming new standards for blockchain operation.
