Author: Climber, CryptoPulseLabs

In recent years, the narrative of the crypto industry has been largely dominated by financialization logic. From DeFi, NFT to MEME, ETF, the market's focus has increasingly shifted to asset prices, liquidity, and institutional fund inflows.

However, recently, the Ethereum team proposed that "privacy is experiencing a renaissance" and re-emphasized the concept of "new cypherpunk," which, to some extent, represents a return to the value perspective.

Ethereum is reminding the entire industry that the initial intention of blockchain's birth was not just financial speculation but to ensure individuals' rights and freedoms in the digital world through cryptographic technology. Privacy, censorship resistance, open source, and security—these seemingly idealistic principles are, in fact, the deepest underlying logic of the crypto industry, perhaps also the meaning behind Ethereum's "new cypherpunk" narrative.

1. From Cypherpunk to Ethereum: The Source of Crypto Industry Thoughts

To understand why Ethereum emphasizes privacy so much, one must first return to the original ideological starting point of the crypto industry—the cypherpunk movement.

In the 1990s, a group of programmers, cryptographers, and internet idealists discussed a question on mailing lists: After the internet became a societal infrastructure, could individual privacy still be protected?

Their answer was: If reliant on governments and corporations, privacy is nearly impossible to guarantee. Therefore, the only solution is to use cryptographic technology.

This group of people is called "cypherpunks." Their core philosophy is to empower individuals with privacy, freedom, and censorship resistance in the digital world through open-source code and cryptographic tools.

In cypherpunk culture, there is a very classic saying:

Privacy is not secrecy but selectively showing oneself to the world.

The birth of Bitcoin is, in fact, a direct product of cypherpunk thought. When Satoshi Nakamoto designed Bitcoin, he hoped to escape the control of the traditional financial system through a decentralized network, while allowing individuals absolute control over their assets.

Ethereum further expands on this foundation. Compared to Bitcoin's singular monetary system, Ethereum provides an open platform for running smart contracts, enabling decentralized applications.

However, in recent years, the crypto industry has gradually undergone some changes.

As capital enters and market scales expand, more and more projects have begun to focus on financial innovation. Financial instruments like liquidity mining, yield farming, and derivatives trading have rapidly developed, turning blockchain into a massive on-chain financial market.

In this process, the core narrative of the industry has also shifted. Technical idealism has been gradually replaced by financial logic, while topics like privacy and digital rights have been marginalized.

Therefore, when Ethereum reintroduces the "cypherpunk spirit," it is essentially reminding the industry that blockchain is not just a financial technology; behind it actually lies a value system about the digital society.

2. "New Cypherpunk": An Upgrade of Value Systems in the Web3 Era

The "new cypherpunk" proposed by Ethereum is not a simple return to the cypherpunk movement of the '90s but a modernization and upgrade of it.

Traditional cypherpunk is more like a culture of technological idealism, emphasizing personal privacy, encrypted communication, and resistance to government surveillance.

In the Web3 era, this concept has been expanded into a more complete collaborative system.

The Ethereum team summarized a set of keywords: CROPS, which stands for Censorship Resistance, Open Source, Privacy, and Security.

These four principles form the core of the new cypherpunk culture.

First is censorship resistance. On traditional internet platforms, the power of life and death over content and accounts often lies in the hands of platform companies. Blockchain networks use decentralized architecture, allowing anyone to participate freely and making it hard for a single entity to shut down or control.

Second is open source. The vast majority of core technologies in the crypto industry are open source, meaning anyone can view the code, audit logic, and contribute to improvements. Open source enhances technological transparency and fosters a global collaborative development model.

The third is privacy. In the Web2 era, user data is often collected by internet companies for commercial purposes, and users themselves can hardly control the flow of this data. The cypherpunk philosophy posits that users should have control over their personal data.

Finally is security. Blockchain systems rely on cryptography and distributed networks to ensure safety—this security does not come from centralized institutions but from mathematics and consensus mechanisms.

In addition to CROPS, the new cypherpunk also emphasizes several important principles, such as permissionless, trustless, and decentralized collaboration.

Permissionless means anyone can deploy applications or transact on the network without needing approval from a platform.

Trustless reduces reliance on third-party institutions by using code and smart contracts. Users do not need to trust a particular company or institution but rather trust transparent program logic.

These concepts together form the cultural foundation of Web3.

Thus, Ethereum's proposal of "new cypherpunk" is an attempt to reinforce this culture and push the entire ecosystem back towards a longer-term technological vision.

3. Privacy Renaissance: Why Now is a Crucial Moment

Ethereum believes that we may be at a crucial stage for the development of privacy technology, and there are multiple reasons behind this.

The maturity of technological conditions is the primary factor. In the past few years, zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology has made significant progress. ZK technology allows users to prove a fact without revealing specific data, such as demonstrating a transaction's legality without exposing the transaction amount or address.

This technology provides an important foundation for privacy transactions, privacy identities, and privacy computing.

Meanwhile, the development of Layer 2 networks has also created new space for privacy features. Some new networks are beginning to attempt to embed privacy functionalities directly into their infrastructure, ensuring that users receive better data protection by default.

Moreover, there are practical issues arising from on-chain transparency. Many people initially believe that blockchain is anonymous. However, in reality, the data of most public chains is completely public. As long as one knows a particular address, all of its transaction records can be tracked.

With the development of on-chain analysis tools, many institutions have become able to identify the entities behind addresses through data analysis.

This means that if users hold significant assets or make frequent transactions on-chain, their behavior is likely to be tracked over the long term.

As a result, more and more people are realizing that what blockchain needs is not only transparency but also **selective privacy**.

Furthermore, the rise of digital identity is noteworthy. With the development of the Web3 ecosystem, an increasing number of social relationships, asset information, and on-chain identities are being recorded on the blockchain. If all this data is completely public, it might pose security risks.

For instance, some users may not wish to disclose their asset size or trading strategies, as this could lead to targeted attacks.

Thus, the future of Web3 is likely to require a new identity system: one that can prove user identity and reputation without exposing excessive personal information.

Zero-knowledge proofs and privacy computing technologies are essential tools to achieve this goal.

Conclusion: Privacy May Be the Core Narrative of the Next Stage

When Ethereum re-emphasizes "new cypherpunk" and the privacy renaissance, it is not only a cultural expression but could also signal a shift in industry narratives.

In recent years, the focus of the crypto market has primarily been on financial innovation and capital flows. However, as technology develops and user demands change, issues like privacy, digital identity, and data sovereignty may once again become focal points in the industry. If privacy technology can integrate with DeFi, social networks, and digital identity systems, the future form of Web3 may undergo significant changes.

In this context, blockchain is no longer merely a publicly transparent financial ledger, but a digital infrastructure that guarantees safety and trust while also protecting personal privacy. In a sense, this is exactly the future envisioned by cypherpunks thirty years ago. And now, Ethereum is trying to bring this ideal back to reality.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。