Vitalik Buterin Donates to Two New Privacy Coins, Next Big Thing?

[Ben Graham]

Vitalik Buterin is putting real money behind his long-running warnings about the erosion of digital privacy, is encrypted messaging the next Vitalik crypto meta?

The Ethereum ETH $3,032.81 3.22% Ethereum ETH Price $3,032.81 3.22% /24h Volume in 24h $18.26B Price 7d Learn more co-founder revealed he donated 128 ETH each, about $760K total, to two decentralized messaging apps, Session and SimpleX, calling them essential to the next generation of permissionless and metadata-free communication.

“Encrypted messaging apps are important for preserving our digital privacy,” Buterin wrote.

(Source: X)

This Vitalik guy is a good one, you know? Ethereum has extremely diffuse ownership, possibly even more than Bitcoin BTC $91,551.98 3.69% Bitcoin BTC Price $91,551.98 3.69% /24h Volume in 24h $51.11B Price 7d Learn more . If Vitalik dumped all his coins, absolutely nothing would happen because he owns quite little of it. Cool guy.

Anyway, both of these privacy platforms bypass the traditional identifiers that mainstream messengers use, such as phone numbers, central servers, and persistent account IDs. Here’s what you need to know:

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Vitalik’s donation lands at a time when global regulators are attempting to weaken encryption under the banner of “safety.” Europe’s controversial Chat Control proposal would have required apps like Signal and Telegram to scan messages before encryption; in essence, centralized authority is cracking down.

Alexander Linton, president of the Session Technology Foundation, welcomed Vitalik’s funding.

“Regulatory and technical developments are threatening the future of private messaging,” Linton said. “Support like this helps us stay focused on the mission.”

(Source: CoinGecko)

The crypto sector sees private communication as an extension of self-sovereignty. Without it, censorship-resistant money and decentralized identity lose meaning.

“These problems need more eyes on them,” Buterin warned.

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(Source: CoinGecko)

Session co-founder Chris McCabe told Cointelegraph that technology alone won’t solve the surveillance problem.

“People are unconscious of what is going on with their data behind the scenes,” McCabe said. “You can have trustless privacy today. You just need to know it exists.”

He argues that decentralized communications need a global education push as much as funding.

Vitalik’s donation is not a symbolic gesture but signals a line in the sand as governments worldwide attempt to redefine the boundaries of private speech.

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Key Takeaways

• Vitalik Buterin is putting real money behind his long-running warnings about the erosion of digital privacy.
• Vitalik’s donation is not a symbolic gesture. It signals a line in the sand as governments worldwide attempt to redefine the boundaries of private speech.

The post Vitalik Buterin Donates to Two New Privacy Coins, Next Big Thing? appeared first on 99Bitcoins.