Vitalik Proposes Mixer to Anonymize 'One-Off' Ethereum Transactions

"We need a first step toward more privacy," Vitalik Buterin, founder of the ethereum blockchain network, said Wendesday.

In a new HackMD post, Buterin detailed a design to help obscure ethereum user activity on the blockchain.

More specifically, Buterin proposed a "Minimal mixer design" aimed at obfuscating user addresses when sending fixed quantities of ether.

According to Buterin, users can transact in one of two ways.

"The default behavior" is to send and receive ether from a single account, which, of course, also means that all of a user's activity will be publicly linked on the blockchain.

Users can transact through multiple accounts or addresses.

"The transactions you make to send ETH to those addresses themselves reveal the link between them," detailed Buterin in his post.

By creating two smart contracts on ethereum - "The mixer and the relayer registry" - users can opt-in to making private transactions on the ethereum blockchain through what is called an anonymity set.

At the same time, the design proposed by Buterin does require users to pay a fee - called gas cost - in order to send private transactions.

For the use cases that Buterin envisions in his mind the fee won't be a major deterrent for users.