Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin deposited 50.25 ETH, worth roughly $113,000, into Privacy Pools, an onchain privacy protocol that uses zero-knowledge proofs to break the link between deposit and withdrawal addresses. Buterin co-authored the research paper underpinning Privacy Pools and was among the protocol's first users when it launched in April 2025. The mainnet ETH pool on the protocol now holds over 800 ETH. Privacy Pools has over $10 million in cumulative deposits.

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The Ethereum Foundation PSE team introduced Anonymous Credentials for Trustless Agents (ACTA), an extension to the ERC-8004 standard that allows agents to prove claims about personhood, reputation, model provenance, and user jurisdiction. It uses zero-knowledge proofs to verify claims without revealing underlying data.

ACTA was created to address the permanent public interaction graph, linkability across sessions, lack of selective credential disclosure, lack of anonymous reputation feedback, and traceable cross-registry profiles in ERC-8004, the onchain trust standard for AI agents. The extension is currently in a draft phase. The PSE team is actively soliciting protocol design proposals.

ETHConf lands in NYC June 8-10, bringing together 5,000+ attendees, 150+ speakers, and 100+ companies across Ethereum, stablecoins, and institutional adoption.

Get your tickets at ethconf.com and use code ETHDAILY for 30% off General and 20% off VIP.

Disclaimer: Content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or other professional advice. No representations or warranties are made as to accuracy, completeness, or timeliness. Use of this content is at your own risk, and you should consult a qualified professional before making decisions. No fiduciary or advisory relationship is created

The Ethereum Foundation's Ecosystem Support Program (ESP) published its Q1 2026 funding allocation, distributing $9.8 million across 57 projects spanning protocol research, cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs, security, privacy, and developer tooling. The quarter reflected a continued emphasis on strengthening Ethereum's core infrastructure.

A significant portion of funding went toward zero-knowledge proof research and development, including formal verification of zkVM systems and optimizations to ZK trace construction. Security and cryptography also received sustained investment, with multiple grants targeting cryptanalysis of the Poseidon hash function used widely across ZK applications.

The Q1 allocation continues a pattern of EF infrastructure investment that includes the $1M Ethereum audit subsidy, the $1M Ethereum Security QF round, the ETH Rangers security program, and the Road To Devcon 8 Academic Program, all aligned with the EF's stated mandate to protect self-sovereign computation and enable coordination at scale.

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