Ethereum’s Buterin Highlights Privacy Crisis After JPMorgan and Citi Customer Data Exposed

• Ethereum co-founder says, “privacy is not a feature, privacy is hygiene,” after potential data exposure at top banks.
• Buterin also raised concerns about X’s new feature, revealing user country data, calling it risky and non-consensual.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently commented on the likely data exposure involving top banking giants such as JPMorgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley. Speaking on this, Buterin said:

Top banks were alerted by service provider SitusAMC that certain client data may have been accessed. The timing of Buterin’s comments made followers think that this was a criticism of traditional finance’s reliance on reactive security measures, instead of having built-in protection measures.

The statement comes just days after Buterin introduced Kohaku, a new privacy and security framework for Ethereum, as mentioned in our previous story. The feature aims to make privacy a default standard on the Ethereum network.

During a demonstration, Kohaku integrated with Railgun to conceal wallet balances in a single step. It demonstrated how privacy can be a function of the core layer. Speaking at Devconnect, Vitalik Buterin cautioned that the increasing influence of Wall Street could pose two key risks: the potential loss of core developers and pressure from large institutional holders to reshape the protocol.

According to Buterin, major financial institutions already operate with high-performance internal systems and are not looking to optimize Ethereum for their own throughput needs. The Ethereum co-founder added that the priority should be preserving Ethereum’s neutrality.

Buterin Warns Against X’s New Feature

Vitalik Buterin also raised concerns over X’s newly introduced feature that displays a user’s country of origin. X’s director of product, Nikita Bier, called it a measure to strengthen the platform’s integrity.

Responding to the rollout, Buterin said on Sunday that although the feature provides useful regional context, it also introduces notable risks. He said that users could also attempt to mask their real locations, while cautioning that broad exposure of geographic data could create new vulnerabilities.

Buterin wrote:

Furthermore, Buterin recently raised concerns over quantum computing threats, which could pose a threat to the security of major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.