Vitalik Buterin has been executing a sequence of transactions that raise some questions. Through Railgun privacy protocol Buterin has transferred 100 ETH, valued at approximately $325,000, without any clear reason.
Railgun is bringing a new layer of privacy to the DeFi space. It is keeping the specifics, like token type, amount and who's sending or receiving tokens under wraps. Users can switch their ERC-20 tokens or NFTs to private addresses and back to public ones without anyone else seeing what is going on. With Railgun, you can also swap tokens and use dApps, all while your privacy is kept intact.
Looking at Vitalik Buterin's recent moves, he has been very active with Railgun, using small bits of ETH at first and now with a bigger splash of 100 ETH. This could mean that he has been testing Railgun and its ability to "hide" transactions. The destination of his transfers, of course, remains unclear.
There could be a bunch of reasons why Buterin is taking this path. He has always been one to push the boundaries of what is possible with blockchain. He might be showing us that you can have both the secrecy of traditional finance and the openness of blockchain.
Having private transactions is a big deal in DeFi and in the digital asset industry in general. People usually love how open blockchain is, but sometimes, you just want to keep your business to yourself. Privacy tools may create opportunities for illicit actors, but it has been proven that traditional finance provides even more opportunities for criminals than blockchain.
Keeping your financial moves private might soon be a normal part of the Ethereum experience, considering the fact that even the cofounder of the second-biggest blockchain in the world uses that technology.