The Ethereum Foundation on Thursday published a roadmap for Kohaku, a new privacy-focused wallet designed to enhance security and confidentiality for Ethereum (ETH) users amid growing concerns about digital privacy. 

The wallet allows private sends, receives, and payments, hides user addresses and IP information, and provides developers with tools to integrate privacy features into decentralized applications (dApps).

Ethereum’s price slid 3.7% in the last 24 hours amid broader weakness in the crypto market, trading at around $4,300 at the time of writing. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around the leading altcoin trended in ‘neutral’ territory over the past day.

Kohaku arrives amid heightened attention to privacy following Zcash’s (ZEC) controversial delisting from certain platforms earlier this year. Regulatory scrutiny and exchange decisions have pushed privacy-conscious users toward decentralized exchanges (DEXes) and cross-chain protocols, including ThorSwap, which now supports non-custodial swaps of ZEC for Ethereum and other major assets. With Kohaku, the foundation aims to offer Ethereum users similar privacy protections without relying on centralized services.

“A castle in the sky is no defense if there are no locks on the doors, and anyone can see through your walls,” said Ethereum Foundation coordinator Nicolas Consigny in a post on X introducing the roadmap.

The roadmap outlines features for developers, including optional peer-to-peer transactions, post-quantum security, social recovery, and hardware wallet support. The foundation said a browser extension, forked from Ambire, will demonstrate the wallet’s capabilities, while developers can integrate the software development kit partially or fully into other wallets.

Future updates plan to extend support to Layer 2 networks, privacy-preserving account abstraction, and deeper integration at the browser and device level. 

Kohaku signals a broader shift in the Ethereum ecosystem toward user-controlled privacy solutions, echoing the challenges privacy tokens like ZEC face under regulatory pressure. By offering advanced confidentiality tools, the Ethereum Foundation aims to retain privacy-conscious users and reinforce the network’s decentralized ethos.

Read also: Bitcoin, Ethereum, And Other Major Cryptocurrencies Dip Ahead Of Powell’s Speech Amid Rising Dollar

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