Vitalik Buterin (비탈릭 부테린) has unveiled a direction for short-term upgrades to embed privacy into Ethereum's base layer.

On May 21 (local time), blockchain media outlet BeInCrypto reported that the issue resurfaced in a public conversation about why Ethereum is still hovering around $2,000 despite the Merge, staking, the spread of Layer 2 and approval of spot exchange-traded funds.

The key issue is the view that Ethereum still lacks sufficient “moneyness.” One user argued that base-layer privacy is the feature most likely to give ether meaningful moneyness. The user said that if base-layer privacy is applied, ETH's utility value would “surge overnight,” and that Layer 1 privacy could also lead to higher mainnet fees.

Buterin joined the discussion directly and disclosed short-term tasks now under development. As “short-term work underway to move Ethereum to default privacy,” he cited account abstraction and FOCIL, as well as access-layer work including Kohaku and private reads.

Account abstraction is being designed to improve wallet usability and make structures more flexible, while making it harder for private transfers to be censored. Kohaku is a tool that makes it harder to determine which wallet data a service provider is querying, reducing the burden of tracking which addresses a user checks.

Account abstraction and FOCIL are being pushed with the Hegota hard fork, scheduled for the second half of 2026, as the target. What the market is watching is whether such stronger privacy will translate into actual demand. Wintermute recently assessed ETH as an “asset that does not fit the macro environment,” and the ETH/BTC ratio hit its lowest level in 10 months.

In this situation, expectations are emerging that once the privacy stack starts to work, it could lift mainnet activity again. Buterin's moves are also not confined to Ethereum. Buterin recently donated to Zcash developer Shielded Labs, signalling support for privacy technology across the wider ecosystem.

Ultimately, this upgrade discussion is linked directly to ETH's demand structure beyond technical improvements to Ethereum. In a situation where the post-Merge narrative alone does not sufficiently explain broader price and usage, the outlet reported that a key question going forward is whether base-layer privacy can fill the “missing feature” cited as Ethereum's weakness.