Guest Article: Building the Future of Enterprise Privacy on Ethereum

By Paul Brody, Global Blockchain Leader at EY

2026 will be the golden year for Ethereum privacy, and nowhere will that matter more than for enterprises.

The ability to protect sensitive business data while benefiting from open blockchain infrastructure is no longer theoretical. Ethereum’s ecosystem is rapidly turning it into a practical, performant reality.

Privacy, by Design

From its inception, Ethereum has treated privacy as a core value, not a feature. As enterprises now bring real assets, contracts, and payments onchain, the need for private transactions has never been more essential.

Ethereum’s developer and research communities have continued to invest in privacy-preserving technology, ensuring that innovation and compliance evolve together.

Why Privacy Is the Final Barrier to Adoption

Most enterprises already recognize the benefits of blockchain: transparency, faster settlement, and reduced intermediaries. But full adoption has been limited by one final challenge: confidentiality.

Pricing, volume, and deal terms are among the most sensitive data in commerce. Companies simply can’t expose those details on a public ledger, even one as secure and decentralized as Ethereum.

To operate onchain, businesses need two kinds of privacy:

• Transaction privacy: hiding details about payments, transfers, and asset movements.
• Contract privacy: protecting the logic and conditions embedded within smart contracts.

Solving the Transparency-Privacy Paradox

Blockchains depend on transparency to function, everyone must be able to verify that the system works. Ethereum is solving this paradox by introducing cryptographic systems that preserve transparency where needed and encryption where not.

At the heart of this evolution are zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), advanced cryptography that allows a party to prove something is true without revealing any underlying data.

This innovation is what makes verifiable privacy possible: enterprises can meet regulatory and audit requirements while keeping competitive and personal information secure.

The Center of Zero-Knowledge Innovation

Ethereum has become the global hub for ZK research and deployment, spanning both open-source and enterprise ecosystems.

New privacy-focused Layer 2 networks are emerging to make business-grade privacy accessible and efficient, including:

• COTI Group : private payment infrastructure
• Aztec : encrypted smart contracts and DeFi
• Miden ( Polygon Labs ): general-purpose ZK Layer 2
• Nightfall ( EY ): enterprise-focused privacy layer

Nightfall is also being deployed as a Layer 3 privacy system, adding confidentiality to existing rollups.

Performance Has Caught Up to the Vision

A few years ago, privacy-preserving transactions were prohibitively slow and expensive. That’s changing rapidly.

At EY, privacy computations are now over 1,000× more efficient than in 2018. Transactions that once cost $100 in gas can now be completed for $0.05, and performance continues to improve.

Across the ecosystem, breakthroughs in ZK mathematics, circuit design, and proof generation are making privacy transactions faster, cheaper, and ready for high-volume enterprise use within the next 18–24 months.

Private ≠ Permissioned, Privacy ≠ Anonymity

A common misconception: private blockchains are not the same as privacy-preserving blockchains. Permissioned systems restrict who can join, but all members still see every transaction. True privacy comes from cryptography, not closed access.

And privacy is not anonymity. The goal is not to hide from regulators, it’s to protect competitive and customer data from unnecessary exposure.

The Road Ahead

With solutions like Nightfall, Aztec , and Miden now live in testnets and preparing for production, 2026 could mark a turning point: the year when Ethereum becomes the trusted privacy layer for both enterprises and consumers.

For institutions exploring onchain finance, supply-chain tracking, identity, or asset tokenization, Ethereum now offers what no other ecosystem can: a proven, decentralized network with verifiable privacy, scalability, and global reach.

The future of enterprise privacy isn’t coming, it’s being built on Ethereum.

This was a guest article by Paul Brody, Global Blockchain Leader at EY