# Ethereum Is Going to Bat for Privacy Protocols

*Author: William M. Peaster*
*Published: May 20, 2026*
*Source: https://www.bankless.com/es/read/ethereum-is-going-to-bat-for-privacy-protocols*

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The default of regular chains to date has been radical transparency. Yet with threats like crypto wrench attacks and mass surveillance on the rise, this [lack of privacy](https://x.com/NeerajKA/status/2057050423102521442) is increasingly impractical for the real world. 

Fortunately for the Ethereum ecosystem, Ethereum devs are currently running a privacy blitz across every possible surface area here, from streamlining UX around privacy ops to blocking IP leaks with private reads. 

> Short-term things being done to shift Ethereum toward native privacy:* AA + FOCIL (makes privacy protocol txs, among many other things, first-class with strong inclusion guarantees)* Keyed nonces: [https://t.co/BeTJvFhxiV](https://t.co/BeTJvFhxiV)* Access-layer work (Kohaku, private reads...) [https://t.co/MImWVYXBQv](https://t.co/MImWVYXBQv)— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) [May 20, 2026](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/2056992175318073477?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Of these new obfuscation pillars, I think the most interesting to me personally is **frame transactions** + **keyed nonces** because of the possibilities this combo poses for Ethereum's app layer privacy protocols. 

For instance, consider how privacy protocols like RAILGUN work today. When you want to transact privately, you can't pay gas from inside a shielded pool, so you submit through a *broadcaster*, which is a third party who posts the transaction onchain on your behalf. 

The catch though is that broadcasters can watch your swap pairs, your trade amounts, your slippage, etc., and thus they can censor you, preempt your transactions, and so forth. 

Frame transactions via [EIP-8141](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-8141) can address this thorn in how they break transactions down into composable *frames*, i.e. contract calls that can validate identity, sponsor gas, and execute multiple actions within one atomic transaction flow. 

That said, and among other things, EIP-8141 will let users attach a paymaster contract in a verification frame to cover gas onchain and submit directly to the mempool themselves, thereby bypassing broadcasters altogether. Plus, researchers are already exploring *encrypted *frame transactions, which would hide transaction parameters like calldata until *after *block ordering is locked. 

However, another woe here is that privacy protocols often route through one shared sender address to break the trail between transactions and individual wallets. These hubs become chokepoints with standard sequential *nonces *(i.e. transaction ordering counters), since this approach means one transaction landing makes other pending withdrawals stale. 

Keyed nonces as proposed in [EIP-8250](https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/eip-8250-keyed-nonces-for-frame-transactions/28437) are a fix for this, as they'll replace the single global nonce format with a structure that lets a single sender manage *many *separate nonce tracks at once, paving the way for concurrent trustless activity around privacy projects like RAILGUN. Also, having flexible nonces like this opens up **1)** using different keys for different contexts, so the nonce system itself can stop being a linkability threat, and **2)** possibilities for [privacy-optimized state](https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2051675198068330996). 

> Alice swaps privately on L1tldr: Privacy protocol users today depend on broadcasters that can see, frontrun, and censor their transactions. In this thread we show how four future protocol upgrades can remove this dependency step by step. Native AA (EIP-8141) and 2D nonces let… [pic.twitter.com/nSMrNPFK5W](https://t.co/nSMrNPFK5W)— soispoke.eth (@soispoke) [March 19, 2026](https://twitter.com/soispoke/status/2034587465382514773?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

This is all just to say that frame transactions and keyed nonces are examples of the brand new legos that Ethereum devs are crafting to weave privacy deeper into Ethereum's core fabric and, in extension, to treat private transactions more like a prime option. The transparent-by-default era isn't over yet, sure, but the scaffolding to transcend it is going up *now*.