Panel | Building Privacy. The pros and cons. | Common S3nse - 2026

Another returning speaker to Common Sense. Another We are spoiled. I'm telling you, like Common Sense is just jam-packed with amazing builders and privacy people. And I would like to welcome back to the stage a very, very special person. No, it's not you.

Yes, it is you. You're the next one. And we're running a little bit or I can also like you're you're there in like two minutes. Wait, no, no, no. Prayers.

Yeah, I would like Yeah. I would like to welcome Migel from Eastwarm as our moderator and who's going to take care of all our wonderful panelists. It's going to be about building privacy as a pros and cons because we know it's really really difficult. So, Ruben, Erin, and Casey and Migle, please join the stage and welcome.

So good to see you. Welcome.

Hello. Hello. Hello. Alrighty. Hello.

Position yourselves on here. I brought some gifts to the people. Well, no. I have red card to call out BS and I have green cards if you agree. So, just hold this.

I'll explain. Hi everyone. For the ones that don't know me, I am Migle and I run a wind privacy which is a creative agency that specifically works with nonextractive technology. So people like Swarm Foundation that are building decentralized infrastructure for sto publishing data um listen privacy panels at privacy events have one really big issue. We all agree that the surveillance is bad.

Okay. So we're not here to reinvent a wheel but I have three incredibly knowledgeable people from three different spheres and backgrounds which is incredibly unique and more something what we need in privacy industry overall. So I actually want to spend the next 30 minutes discussing and talking about things that we might not agree and have kind of a reality check and be very honest to ourselves. What is working? What is not working in our industry and what can we do better as well.

So before we begin I'll do very quick introductions and I have prepared one a little bit more personal question to each of you uh that hopefully will get the audience to understand a little bit better about your background as well. So I'll start with Ruben and Ruben is co-founder of and a project steward of a cryptocurrency building private digital cash through technologies including like lento spark. Reuben you were a corporate lawyer before becoming a privacy builder um exposing here but it's public information. Um what does a lawyer understand about privacy that cryptographer might miss? Um I think in particular a cryptographer may look at the system and like look at two different system and say yeah they're kind of identical in function but one of them would probably fit in the regulatory framework and tick the boxes while another doesn't which you know we can see whether privacy pools or like with us exchange addresses but I guess we can talk about that later.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you Aaron. So Aaron is a chairman and CEO of a Daylight Freedom Foundation and a Brownstone Institute fellow focused on financial surveillance, digital control, and individual liberty. Erin, what did entrepreneurship teach you about people's willingness to exchange autonomy for convenience that political activism did not? Well, people in politics will act like they're interested in freedom, whereas from an entrepreneurial perspective, people will trade freedom for convenience in, you know, over 4 seconds of transaction time.

Casey and Casey is a head of communications and lead writer at NIM, an anonymity network designed to protect both the content and the metadata of people's online activity. So Casey, as a philosopher working inside privacy projects, what do privacy engineers most often misunderstand about the people that they're trying to protect? So the users

that people care about their privacy and [clears throat] if they don't care um what need what kind of messaging what kind of education needs to be done in order to get ordinary people um to take seriously and I think the way that they immediately would if they knew the concrete threats that they were all being exposed to um every time they clicked anything online.

All right, before I dwell into my questions, I wanted to play a very very quick game which contains you have a green card and a red card. Obviously, green is for yes, I agree with a statement. Red is no, I disagree with a statement. Um, please raise your cards and I depending on your answer, I might ask you a follow-up question on it. But if you agree with my statement that I will read, it's a green.

If you disagree, it's a red. A VPN should use its strongest anonymity mode by default, even if streaming and video calls become noticeably slower.

Reuben,

as in why I pick

why why do you think not?

I mean, realistically, even using a VPN is a compromise in itself, right? It's not the the most private way to to hide your thing. And when you use a VPN, you I think everyone has different thread levels, right? I just don't want my ISP looking I just want to appear from a different country to access my Netflix. So I think it depends on your thread level and what's the function like if I just want to do streaming from from my own home country.

Yeah, I'll use the the quick not so private VPN quick one. While if I'm really like I'm a you know a dissident or a journalist and want I'm probably going to use something like Nim, right? Yeah. So yeah.

Yeah. Erin, you answered green. Yes. No matter if we sacrifice the kind of ability to stream faster, we should be using VPN. Why?

Why do you think so?

Well, I think people should get used to the most private option by default because generally people will not later opt in for more privacy. So easy easier easier is better.

I agree. Okay, let's go to the next statement. A privacy coin should introduce exchangeonly transparent addresses if that is the only way to remain listed on Binance or another major exchange. This is a bit personal to some people, but

it's very personal.

I don't know if some of you know the history, but okay, I'll let Ruben speak.

At that time, I would say I defend the decision but I don't celebrate it right and at that point in time we were trying to kind of as in my talk like uh I was trying to defend the middle ground right to maintain the accessibility of privacy coins rather than get pushed to become some sort of paria right and the way that I saw exchange addresses was [snorts] that even even like Zano which is like a mandatory private by default they have now adopted did something called gateway addresses, right? And Zcash also has their what do they call it? Some some sort of exchange addresses that was actually inspired by our work as well. And the idea was that privacy, you can have the highest privacy, but if no one has access or usability to it, then what's the point, right? Like you need users, you need people.

And at that point, Binance is the largest or was the largest exchange at the time and it was the primary liquidity solution. And if if we if there was no such a way and all privacy coins were delisted from Binance, that would also have been a a bad blow to privacy as a whole. So in this case, exchange addresses kind of introduce a way where if you used it in the right way, you're not giving any more data than just a pure unshielding. And I thought it was a decent compromise uh at the time which allowed you know Zcash also to to remain on Binance. It ultimately did not work for us um for for I don't know God knows what.

Yeah, we will we might d into that later as well. Um Casey, maybe you can follow up as well from more communications and philosophical perspective on this one. Uh, I mean, I probably don't have as much of a meaningful contribution as these two it would, but um, maybe I'll pass.

Okay, Erin, do you want to add on to this?

I mean, I would say it probably made sense at the time. I mean, it was a rational decision to make then. Obviously, it didn't work out and now it probably wouldn't work either based on what's going on with the regulatory environment and exchanges in general.

You for Zcash, though. [laughter] [clears throat]

All right, my next statement. Um, a developer should publish censorship resistant payment software even if the country when it is most needed has made that software illegal.

Okay, nice. We all agree on this. Aaron, would you like to add on to this? Well, I mean, this is critical for fighting for human freedom at this point. And so, this is a necessary tool and these are the scenarios where, you know, if you're in a country that's trying to make it illegal, but you're in the right, you should definitely double down.

I sincerely added this statement as encouragement because I do tend to have conversations with some developers that still has that fear and I think we need to do more activism but also just open conversation to hear people also like you to support them even if it's a a verbal support. Um and areas and spaces like this do support these hackers and if you're not here in the room with us this year hopefully you will be here next year to hack on the hackathon.

Can I add something?

Yes, please. cuz cuz I'm a lawyer, right? And I just want to

That's a good one. [laughter]

I I want to add that like, you know, what is legal is not necessarily good or ethical and what's illegal isn't necessarily bad, right? So it's there are rules imposed by the government and obviously authoritarian or bad governments make bad rules. So just because it's legal or illegal doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, right? We just need to understand the risk that we're willing to take. And I think that's not to say that's not to say that we should dismiss the the importance of of laws in general because of an inherent ambiguity in terms of their moral their moral value or their justice.

Uh it's just that we should take seriously that laws around the world are constantly being negotiated according to a set of values or a set of interests. Um and so we should constantly be we should constantly be interrogating them. And technology is one way of delivering um tools to people for them to decide for themselves based on their circumstances, which sometimes can be quite serious and life-threatening, um how they can and cannot act in their own self-defense when laws are failing them. And

I just add one other thing. We should do everything that we can to defend privacy developers that do find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

I agree. And especially I think most of the sponsors of this event and of the hackathon are those companies that if you find a way to connect with them they will most likely help you in one shape or another whether that's through technology knowledge sharing their resources of lawyers grants and etc. So I do encourage everyone if one developer is seeing this and thinking should I publish this repo should I do this because I'm from X Y and Z country do do it but you do have resources and people to connect with and that's why we do appreciate these uh events like this where you can meet these like-minded people. I mean like like being in Amsterdam or in in the Netherlands is quite

quite you know where you have all these wonderful privacy laws and protections but yeah you know Alexi Pzf was

Yep.

was uh arrested here.

Yeah. Exactly. It's a good study case as well that you're kind of not really safe anywhere if you're specifically focusing on something as radical in some people's minds as privacy. So my last statement, if you agree or not, is a privacy app may collect anonymous crash and usage data if that is the only practical way to improve the product.

Interesting. communications person, philosopher, police expand

as a representative of a privacy app that does collect anonymize performance data. Voluntarily you can opt in. It's very important. Something you opt into

important.

Um, so under those conditions, I think it should never be it should never be a default. I think the I think the user should always have a choice to contribute to app development and that it should always be anonymized because there is very very very little reason why this data should ever be non- anonymized. Um it's for I mean we we started developing the the actual VPN for instance uh one and a half two years ago at the most intense level and this performance data um has been absolutely essential for us to um develop the app to make the app what it is today. But I'll just note one important thing as a V for it's a it's a it's a VPN. So new VPN.

One of our big [clears throat] goals is to try to make it something that can allow people to access the internet in very restrictive censored internet environments. And having connection records and seeing where the encryption tunnels fail and where they're blocked is really the is really the condition for us to develop censorship busting um methods so that the app actually does the thing that we needed to do which is get people online. [snorts] And so having records of those things anonymized and consensual has been hugely important for us.

Indeed. I'm actually more curious to ask uh Reuben or Aaron if you want to answer this then how else do you improve the product and if you don't have this pathway of collecting the crash data do you have any practical advices then

no I actually I mean I had to put a a color but obviously agree I mean in a sense when it's consensual and stuff like that obviously we're choosing to share but sometimes like what is necessary gets kind of blurred right it's like oh what is convenient right like I think there's a difference also between like usage data versus crash data, right? Crash data is like um I'm giving you like a snapshot of what happens while there may be more intrusive analytics that kind of record how you use the app. But you know I friend a VPN before as well and you know in China with all these like great firewalls that are constantly evolving if you know when you're using the service and it doesn't work obviously you want to help the developer how am I going to get around this? How is it failing? So yeah, I don't know agree, disagree, but I think more or less, you know, make sure that what is necessary is necessary, it's always consent based, right?

And us and yeah, and make and usage data would be a a very different topic also, not just uh not just crash reports.

I think provided it's optin. I the original question didn't have that in there. So I I'm fine with it if it's opt in.

I agree. I think um working with companies with nonprofits like Swarm Foundation also made me realize that especially when it comes to nonprofits, the people working there are so incredibly idealistic in a sense of really trying to create the technology that follows all the rules of the privacy self-s sovereignty and I personally really appreciated that. Um, but I also very quickly realized that we do need practical ways to move forward and we really truly just can't be that idolistic because then the UX fails, the users fail fail and we don't have enough audiences using our tools because we don't have enough data also to improve the tools. Um, all right. Thank you for participating in my little game.

Um, now let's move on to some of the questions. and Reuben, I we kind of already touched upon this um but I wanted to follow up that Phyro so for the ones that did not know on the history did created exchange only transparent addresses to stay compatible with major exchanges um and Binance stopped either way. So do you regret making that compromise? And then kind of a followup is what is your nonnegotiable line on interperability today based on that experience? I mean obviously it's easy to say in retrospect I regret it right by the time it definitely made sense.

We were actually in the process of because uh it was it was like kind of like a multi-stage process. First of all, Binance contacted us and a bunch of other projects and said are you going to remove your privacy? And obviously we said no, right? And I said, well, okay, that that's the case. Noted, which meant I realized, okay, they're going to delist this, right?

And well, I said, well, tell me what what your requirements are and maybe we can work something out with it. And I was also in touch with uh some of the guys from Zcash and they were also looking at saying oh why don't we you know supply the view keys to the exchange which is to me probably worse because well if it's a wallet view key you'll probably get more than just that transaction and it was also going to have a lot of additional tooling right and it just looked as if oh there's no way that we are going to maintain be able to to remain on Binance and of course Monero just laughed which I respect back and they're just like, "Yep, that's fine." You know, [clears throat] and and at that time when when we implemented it, uh Binance then told the other coins say, "Well, you know, implement something similar to Furos and we will keep you on. It satisfies our requirements." And in that sense, a couple of other privacy coins adopted a method Zcash.

Well, they had their own, but it's still roughly on our idea. And that allowed uh them but somehow you know maybe market caps size or whatever uh led them to just steal the listers. But in Zcash case it worked out for them and from what I hear you know it also involved a lot of lobbying on the Zcash side something that FOH as a small community project does not have. Uh and a lot of the things were they were particular when I was speaking to to the Binance team and of course now since I'm dealers I can speak freely on it. um was that several like specific regulators had singled out they had a list of coins that they were told to like take action on and because I was asking like hey look look at all these other coins um why are they not flag they are functionally the same so is Litecoin a privacy coin is Verge a privacy coin that only has to right and it became well you know the regulator was just looking maybe at coin gekl and coin market c like oh privacy coins.

I need to target all of this regardless of the actuality of the situation. So I felt that exchange addresses at that time make sense. Obviously where's that red line? Well, obviously if it's you know some sort of like global or something that you know really restricts the ability of here it's like a still a choice. I can choose not to use Binance.

I can choose not to use the address. But if it avoids like you know if there's a back door that's obviously would be a red line right so yeah

I think because this panel is indeed focusing on the pros and cons of building in privacy I do hope that these questions are helping also the audience and whoever will be watching this to understand that you know this was also a person you would think you had all of the resources to have the most equipped decision- making also coming from corporate law and the fact that it was still delicited and ended in the way that it did, it just truly shows that we cannot prepare for certain things and we just have to take the actions and see how it pans out, right? Um, and for Casey, I have a question about NIM. And um, I saw that NIM lets the users choose between the faster two hop um, option mode and then there's also the anonymous five hop mixnet. And is that meaning? It is a very meaningful choice but do you think that the ordinary users are equipped to make that decision uh between the two and then I wanted to ask which option do you use like on a daily basis and why?

Uh well so it nicely comes back to one of the earlier that one of the earlier questions we had about um about about speed and usability of like privacy services. Um, so [clears throat] at NIM, like we kind of have this obsession, we kind of have this obsession with giving people the choice to do things. So we end up jam-packing a bunch of choices into into the app, thinking, "Oh, this is oh, it's like this this be great. They'll have this like tiny little distinction that they can make and like niche people will love it." And at the end of the day, the app becomes a kind of like Frankenstein.

Oh, yeah. I know. And like its [clears throat] usability actually goes down because when when an ordinary person opens up the thing and they're confronted with so many choices in the settings page, the whole thing suddenly appears unusable given the amount of usability. Um, so from a UX perspective, we've struggled we've struggled a lot with this. how to balance like the things that we know privacy maxis really might really like but also the fact that we want ordinary people all around the world in lots of different cultures with lots of different techn technical differences and technical expertise to be able to open the app and get the privacy that they need.

[clears throat] So I mean the first big choice is this choice between like the two hop DVPN mode and the mixnet. Um, and that's a choice that's right. That's the first thing you see. And um, it's a huge difference. The difference between these two things is like light and day.

The one like the two hop is a in terms [clears throat] of usability, it's like just as fast as a one hop VPN um, because of like wireguard optimizations, but like twice as private, actually private we could say. Um, and the other one is a sluggingly slow mixet with a bunch of noise that like will barely load a web page because it's not designed to load a web page. That's not its use case. And so it's a weird thing where it's like this is at once like the most novel piece of technology we have and you want to showcase it, but putting it next to an option which is like your everyday VPN and somebody accidentally turning it on and wanting to get on Netflix and then being like, "This VPN doesn't work." And then we have to explain to them don't use the mixnet for Netflix.

Yeah, it's a it's a it's a huge this is like a huge struggle. And so we've been like we've been thinking a lot about how to do this from a basic UX perspective so that touches all those boxes and just to communicate with people that like this thing is for this and this thing is for that. It's quite hard to do on one screen of an app and it's also too much to demand of of users, ordinary users that they go read a bunch of documentation or articles just so they understand how to get privacy immediately and most privacy a lot of privacy can't wait uh unfortunately in some cases. So this is something we've struggled with and we do have a lot of new UX designs coming out that are going to hopefully simplify this.

Nice. That's also good to hear. And I think so indeed in my question I asked you know like do we think that ordinary users are equipped to make that answer but you did answer that by saying look the niche privacy people that's are the ones that are looking for these you know extra add-ons and I also worked and consulted so many privacy projects where they end up their product looking like a Frankenstein because you know on some forum some privacy maxi said this and this and that does not follow this this and that. But then I'm like, yeah, but like I get it, but they're the the loud ones, and I get it that we need to listen to them, but at the end of the day, they're also not the regular users, right? So, we also can't create and bake the whole project based on them because then we end up in those issues of Frankensteines and regular users not being able to adapt so easier than we would all want.

But to more specifically answer your question, do I think that ordinary users are equipped to make that choice? No. Do I think that but that I don't think that that's a I don't think that that's necessarily a problem. Like I think that um when you create when you create something novel in the world um you you sometimes don't you don't create something for an audience that exists you create it in advance for people who have not yet arrived. And unfortunately it has to it has to sit there and be awkward like like a like a teenager going through puberty who has no one to hang out with.

Um until later on like you kind of realize what it is. And so maybe that would be the case and we hope that that would be the case. But um right now I think that the thing is to keep all the levels but to structure the levels in a way that allow people to discover more without those other deeper advanced levels turning them off from the beginning. So

thank you. Now Aaron, I have a question for you because I saw in some of your writings or interviews that you argue that stable coins can become tool of financial surveillance and control. Um but of course I would argue that stable coins are being used by millions and it is one of the most adapted um kind of products of blockchain as well and they choose them because they're easier to access and than private money. So what private alternative can realistically compete today in practice rather than in theory and what compromise would you accept to make that an alternative mainstream?

I mean so I live on privacy coins. I actually don't use a personal bank account and which is challenging by the way. It's become more challenging with all of the regulatory crackdown. I actually use something called Freedom Dollar, which is a privacy stable coin built on Zeno. And so it's an algorithmic stable coin, can't be censored, isn't subject to the Genius Act or the Clarity Act or any of the other regulation.

I mean, realistically, if it's like a $12 million market cap at this point, which so it's not exactly um mainstream yet, but you can use it. I can use it with a Zbeck, Mastercard, which speaks to what trade-offs are you willing to make. Well, you know, at some point there may be some touch point uh if you need to actually use it on a day-to-day basis. I'm still, you know, holding my freedom dollar in a way that's private, but I do have touch points that kind of touch the system. And so that's that's a trade-off that can be made.

But I think stable coins, they are popular. I think last year there was something like $33 trillion worth of transaction volume. But when you look at what's happening, I'll give you one example because no one talks about the Clarity Act. There's the Genius Act in the US that basically requires stable coins to be backed by treasuries and to be, you know, controlled under this regulatory environment that the fiat is is under. The Clarity Act steps that up and adds the ability for stable coins to be able to be frozen and burned and tracked.

And now they are adding a new section for being able to force you to exchange your stable coin. So you may be using USDC or Tether, but under this regulation they could force you to move into something else like for instance a CBDC which they banned until 2030 which is you know what a what an ominous date uh to ban CBDC's. So under this you could have a stable coin. Everybody could be using their government regulated stable coins and then in 2030 you could be forced to convert them to a CBDC.

Since indeed you come from all three of you come from very different backgrounds and are currently even working on the same goal but very different companies. I wanted to ask you from your point of view, what is the hardest truth about building privacy technology that the industry kind of avoids sometimes saying it or admitting it out loud? What is the hardest truth about building privacy that we tend to avoid saying it out loud? I feel that what privacy is kind of like an like it's not a product like AI that makes you like ah hope look at the future. It's more like privacy is like, oh, if we really need this, we're we're You know, it's like we're building for a future that we don't want to see.

And it's kind of negative and quite hard to sell privacy because people naturally want to look and, you know,

feel good,

feel good, right? And look, oh, look at the possibilities. We can go to the moon. We can do this. We can solve cancer.

in privacy is like oh yeah if authoritarian government comes along and oppresses uses damn this thing will be important right and that's quite a hard thing to do so kind of like in a way we for a product for our product to really take off the world has to be in a really bad place so I don't know I mean I hope it's normalized but it is sometimes you just need that jolt to say like oh my god privacy matters and you only feel that when that's taken away from you and and that has been taken away several times from me. So that's why I'm building privacy. Yeah.

And what is a compromise in your own work that you have to do it but you enjoy least making that compromise in building privacy? Um well maybe I'll pick I'll piggyback a bit on the thing Ruben's saying is uh I think one compromise when it comes to so I do a lot of um I do a lot of um [clears throat] crafting communications and messaging and education pieces for between like the tech side and ordinary people. Um, and it is it is a it is a struggle to know that the most powerful message you have is a message of fear. Um, and in a way it's the truest one. Um, but it's not the one that sells.

Um, and it's not the one and sells in the sense not just like it's not the one that makes money. It's it's the it's not the one that's going to put the thing in people's hands who really need it. Um, so [clears throat] twisting the message to try to create a kind of positive need um that doesn't necessarily reflect the reason you're building something but reflects the complex reasons people actually use products um can be can sometimes feel like a compromise. Um, I mean, when it comes to VPNs, we we often say, "Oh, we I mean, we're doing this to protect people's privacy against surveillance when probably the majority of people just want to see what's on Netflix in England." Um, like in the back of their minds, they probably care about privacy, but it's not the thing that's in the front of their minds.

And, uh, my goal is try to my goal is to try to figure out how to bring that more to the front. um knowing that people would care about it if they knew the if they knew the actual reality.

I actually very much agree with you. Um a lot of the people companies that I work with, they come to us because they fail to on board users or don't have users and they struggle to market it. Um and one thing that I compromise in my work is to tell them very truthfully that you have to stop being idolistic. uh you just can't really afford doing so. And also marketing 101 by the way I'll use Nike as an example like to sell us products.

Marketing 101 is to make you feel feel emotion what you will feel when you use that product. Right? So just do it. You will be amazing. You'll be like athlete.

That's what Nike is making us feel when they're creating these commercials. So now you imagine marketing a privacy company like are we supposed to people make them feel like it's already the doomsday and this will help you solve to be out of the doomsday you know like this is a really big challenge that I personally extensively research and and work in my field so I compromise a lot on not sometimes having to be so idealistic And I mean I don't know we chatted a bit. I sent you some things. I used you know alternative things to Google Docs but sometimes even those super privacy companies they are on Slack and I'm like well hooray you know like okay but then it's fine like I'm not going to judge you and I know that again someone some discord lord will judge you or you know call you out on Twitter but I think that that's the biggest compromise that I don't enjoy defending but I think it is very necessary for our industry. So that's my very honest take on this as well.

I think in a way in a very very crude way it's almost like trying to say like yeah condoms are amazing right because it's like no I don't know as a man one kind of likes it but

yeah there's like great [clears throat] usage points you know [laughter]

is good analogy

um so continuing this thread also on the users where do you guys think that the privacy products usually lose the ordinary user users and what have you seen actually work in the workflows

uh at any point in which the thing becomes an inconvenience something to pay something that they have to pay attention to so I think the goal is for a privacy product is that it operates in the background um that it's not something that's interrupting their day-to-day flows and it's not something that they have to micromanage on the front end um but it's very hard because you know a lot we're dealing with internet connections and those things drop uh those things change and so this I think we I think we lose a lot of users at this point

and what about this because you also mentioned that NIM specifically but I'm sure both of you as well have faced this challenge of okay we want to tell our users where is privacy here and what is implemented there but where do you guys think that the privacy should run in the background and indeed be just by the default and where do we draw draw that line and say no we should tell this to users and that this is the privacy option. I think it it's always like, you know, what's what's the drawback on convenience and usability, right? Like if it's not going to like if it's something like in the background, maybe like a two three second delay, you're like, h, yeah, I'm going to turn it on by default. But if it really changes your user behavior, then obviously then you should tell people, right, if you do this way, then you're going to have this outcome, right? So yeah, like like for example, like you know, like a VPN, right?

like if if it's really quick and what not, sure, you can turn it on by default, have it running in the background, but the moment like you you want to like opt out or try to do something a bit more, I would say sensitive, then they have to understand that that's not enough. Yeah.

Yeah. [clears throat] And I' I've put together a site at Daylight Freedom where we kind of list 10 different dimensions of sovereignty and whether it's financial sovereignty, health sovereignty, food sovereignty, AI sovereignty, etc. and kind of present it as a continuum. So, it's like, okay, here's where you start and kind of here's where you're moving. Not like a social credit system kind of way, but here are steps that you can take to make improvements because none of us are completely operating in a private manner, right?

I mean, I'm we're on social media or whatever using different tools just out of out of a practical uh matter, but you can start to take incremental steps. And I think as long as you set that expectation, it'll be easier for people to actually start and know where they are, kind of have an assessment. But one thing I wanted to highlight was uh something from Zcash uh Violet from Zcash highlighted which was just from yesterday's uh kind of like a meetup and he she was saying you know as a as a sex worker you know like you're obviously dealing with someone most people are not going to be very techsavvy right and she was saying like when you are [clears throat] most normal crypto wallets when you when you set it up uh here's your seat face remember to write it down and put all this in, right? When the Zoda, I don't how I pronounce it. Zoda Zashi app, right?

Doesn't tell you anything about it. Just like here's your wallet, no registration, blam. And yes, later on when you have money in it, it'll start reminding you. But I thought that was a very like it was a big insight to me. I was like, yeah, that kind of makes sense, right?

When I create a wallet, I don't have all these user frictions because not just privacy, but crypto in general, when you tell people, "Oh, I remember the seed phrase." it is. It puts off so many people. So I think that's something we can learn from. Yeah.

Um Aaron, you also work a lot with lobbying and publicly discussing the people and warning people about surveillance. But if warnings are not really helping and we are all of us that are building in privacy in dire need of more users uh getting on board, how do we change the user's behavior? What will change? Do you think it's indeed the doomsday, the happening, something falling down? Like what what will be that change?

I mean, I think it we already are in doomsday. So, I mean, this is I spent a lot of time trying to warn people about how bad it already is. I mean, even if you're not in crypto, the existing fiat system is completely surveiled, completely uh able to be censored and programmed, and people are just completely asleep. And so, that that is an issue. But of course the problem is are people going to wake up too late where by the time they wake up their options are all blocked off and that is a real issue and I think the challenge that we have is on boarding.

It's not only on boarding particularly with privacy coins. I mean I'm I actually struggle with it myself. As I said I I live on privacy coins but being able to swap in and out and actually find places. It it's like living in a video game actually trying to live off of this stuff.

And that's a real barrier. It's because I I've onboarded I don't know thousands of people and I've done workshops and then but then you change wallets and then there are three different wallets and then they forget where it is.

Bada boom all start from the zero.

So I think the problem is a lack of stability of use once you on board someone. I think you can get to the point where you can on board but then having them have a consistent experience because when you take a noob that isn't a cryptonative they're completely unfamiliar with any of these concepts. you make a UI tweak and it's like there's it's a completely new thing. And so if you're native to it, it's like, "Oh yeah, they just shifted this around." But there are people I've actually gotten to the point with tutorials where I put it in print form and print out each screenshot where they can actually down print it as a PDF because people actually like doing that kind of thing.

Yep.

And so so we have to fix I I don't know how to fix this, but we need stability and the ability to uh on board at scale. right now. I know a lot of people that want to get in and literally don't know how to get privacy coins.

Yeah, I agree. As a non-technical hacker that had to on board people, it is incredibly incredibly tough. Um, we are out of time unfortunately, but um I want to just send one message to everyone. If I can ask kindly, speak to a person at this conference that you have never spoken before. That would be my biggest recommendation because there's some incredibly incredibly interesting people.

I am a massive extrovert. So for me, it's like I love adopting the introverts as well, but I know that some of you are more shy than others. So if you have any brave moment in your time, just go and chat and I almost guarantee you people will be very curious and interested to have a conversation with you. Um, thank you so much you guys and I hope to see all of you and come to my talk tomorrow, decentralized media at 12:15. Thank you guys.

Wow. Thank you so much, Mig. I love the cards. I love how you just challenged our speakers and found where they were agreeing or not. So, thank you so much for joining the stage and taking on this uh this panel.

to add on uh what Ruben was talking about Violet from yesterday. I also had like a huge insight. We don't use Cash App here in the Netherlands, but basically as like Ruben was mentioning as a sex worker, she's able to basically um just give people like uh an address, but they put it in Cash App. So basically the the the customer is always in their minds they're just sending fiat. Um but basically ash cash app then in the back end swaps that fiat for um different stable coins but she on the other hand that receiving address is actually a swap and she receives directly shielded Zcash in her wallet.

I thought that was that was amazing. I think that for adoption like so if we can sort of um sort of hack our way and allow normal people to sort of keep using fiat or their normal apps that they're used to but then in the background there's some switcheroos so that people can actually uh accept cryptocurrencies but without ever using the word crypto or zcash or I need to I use privacy coins that's wonderful and that's just one case and I thought that was really really interesting.