The Wallet Privacy Crisis And the Fight to Fix It. Antonio Seveso, CTO & Co-founder of Fluidkey

Thu, Oct 2, 2025, 12:00 AM

Antonio Seveso (CTO & Co-founder of Fluidkey) shares his path from GDPR-era privacy startups to building Fluidkey - a tool that fixes one of crypto’s biggest adoption blockers: public addresses exposing your entire history. He explains how hackathons shaped Fluidkey’s design, why ENS integration was a turning point, and how community feedback pushed them to bridge bank transfers with on-chain minting. Antonio is candid about the mistakes of “zombie projects,” the balance between listening to users and following convictions, and why co-founders need shared values above all. Beyond tech, Antonio talks about making privacy practical, why “free” services often mean you are the product, and how to start with simple habits. Looking ahead, he imagines AI running inside trusted execution environments, delivering private computation by default. His cultural reference: hacker Kevin Mitnick and the reminder that humans, not systems, are often the weakest link. Timecodes 00:00 – Intro: Who is Antonio Seveso & what is Fluidkey 01:04 – First privacy startup & GDPR era learnings 01:55 – Moving full-time into Web3; meeting co-founder at a hackathon 03:17 – Mistakes at hackathons & the problem with “zombie projects” 05:23 – The core problem: addresses expose history & balances 07:22 – Solution: fresh addresses per payment, smart accounts 08:36 – Analogy to the early internet: infrastructure hides complexity 11:31 – ENS integration: one name, infinite fresh addresses 12:40 – Community feedback: from nerdy privacy → practical UX 13:36 – Beyond CEX: why better UX beats centralized shortcuts 15:42 – UX & team building: the power of complementary co-founders 18:05 – Values & alignment: how to not “kill your co-founder” 22:06 – Sustainability: grants, voting, and VC without shame 24:26 – Mistakes & lessons: ideas vs. real use, side projects, money 27:07 – Privacy for beginners: habits, Linux, “why is this free?” 30:59 – Perfect future: AI tailored, open-source, private by default 34:27 – Private AI through TEEs: compute without data leakage 37:00 – Advice: share problems publicly, don’t stay in your bubble 38:28 – Cultural rec: Kevin Mitnick’s hacker stories & social engineering 39:23 – Closing thoughts & reflections ... This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews – a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info/p/interviews A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey Let privacy be with you!