Why Privacy in Crypto is Back on the Menu: Dash Core Member Joël Valenzuela Chips In

Privacy coins are having a moment in the sun amid tightening KYC regulations and a renewed interest in on-chain anonymity. As one of the true OGs of the privacy space, Dash is very much in the mix, backed by a decade of real-world focus on instant, low-cost, private payments. To unpack what’s driving the rally, discuss where on-chain confidentiality fits in everyday use, and forecast what’s next for the long-running Dash DAO, we broke bread with core member Joël Valenzuela.

The privacy coin sector has been booming over the past few months. What do you see as the primary catalysts behind this rally, and how is Dash positioned to capitalize?

Privacy in crypto is hot right now, mostly because of the relative legal clarity around privacy assets that we’ve seen develop over the past few years. People don’t want to go to prison, and when they’re confident that they won’t, they feel a lot more comfortable engaging.

At the same time, uncertainty around the future of AI and governments creating a surveillance state, combined with Bitcoin’s inability to secure user privacy, have created this boom effect.

Dash has safeguarded user confidentiality since day one in 2014. As we’ve expanded to focus on greater digital cash functionality like instant transactions and ease of use, we’ve remained committed to our original features, and are actively working to expand them.

How does on-chain confidentiality through features like PrivateSend provide a competitive edge over transparent alternatives in everyday payments?

Simply put, a complete lack of privacy is a huge liability and security issue.

Companies, funds, individuals, and more don’t want their every financial move tracked, and especially in the age of $5 wrench attacks, kidnappings, and more, there could be a real safety risk associated with someone knowing your crypto wealth.

Every protocol that wants to have any serious user adoption in the long run needs at least some basic built-in confidentiality features to keep outside observers from knowing who you’re transacting with or how much you have.

Tyler Winklevoss recently invested $50m in Zcash, calling privacy “the precondition for freedoms.” I’m sure you agree, but what’s your take on how tools that offer fast, low-cost private transactions – dash included – contribute to that conversation?

If decentralization allows us to transact permissionlessly in theory, and privacy allows us to do so in practice, fast, low-cost transactions are what extend this to everyone.

When sovereign tools are expensive or difficult to use, few will use them or benefit from them, and when they do it will only be during exceptional circumstances. We believe in extending these freedoms to everyone, everywhere, for every purpose, at all times.

What kind of real-world use cases or user behaviors do you think remain underexplored for privacy-oriented projects?

Digital identity and data remain unexplored.

We should be able to maintain sovereign access to data, access to memberships and property, transaction and communication history, and much, much more. Making this both easily accessible and private is a game changer, and is something we’re working on with our Evolution platform.

Once everything a user has from a Google account can be stored and accessed just as easily in a sovereign and private way, we may finally see the beginning of a new era for privacy.

Users are starting to demand both privacy and usability in a single transaction. How realistic is this right now?

We can offer usability and privacy right now in transactions, though there are some trade-offs.

Private transactions typically use more data and resources to use, and affect things like syncing wallet balances. It’s inherently more difficult for an open and public network to function with less information.

That being said, improvements and optimizations are happening all the time. Within the next five years, an average user won’t notice a performance degradation from deciding to leverage privacy tools.

Dash has been working on refining its tech for over a decade. With evolving regulations and institutional interest in privacy, what’s the biggest opportunity – and risk – for Dash in the next market cycle?

Our biggest opportunity is that we finally become the breakthrough digital cash for the world. We’re well-positioned for this, with integrations in many payment processors and other tools, making it feasible to live entirely on Dash today. This will only get easier with some extra features we’re rolling out in the next few months.

The biggest risk is simply that users become complacent and don’t value sovereign and decentralized solutions soon enough. If centralized stablecoins eat up too much market share for payments in the short term, that just means it’ll take longer for us to bring decentralized digital cash to the world.

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