Business Privacy, Harder & More Valuable Than You Think | Paul Brody at Pragma Prague 2025
Thu, Oct 2, 2025, 12:00 AM
In this talk at Pragma Prague 2025, Paul Brody from EY dives into the critical role of privacy in enterprise blockchain adoption. He explains why business privacy is more complex than consumer privacy, covering regulatory challenges, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), and scalable solutions like EY’s Nightfall and Starlight. Brody also discusses the future of privacy tech, compliance strategies, and why Ethereum is the backbone for enterprise blockchain. A must-watch for anyone interested in crypto, supply chain, DeFi, and enterprise blockchain solutions. 00:00 Introduction to Paul Brody and business privacy 00:49 Why business privacy is harder than consumer privacy 01:15 The value of privacy in enterprise coordination 02:12 How modern supply chains complicate coordination 03:12 Tokenization and smart contracts for business processes 04:17 Two types of privacy: Money vs. agreement terms 05:14 EY’s Nightfall (ZK rollup) and Starlight (private smart contracts) 06:18 Five challenges in enterprise privacy solutions 07:56 Regulatory compliance and confidentiality in privacy tech 09:25 Key requirements for enterprise privacy solutions 10:33 Privacy challenges in supply chain traceability 11:06 Four major privacy tech choices (ZKPs, MPC, HE, TEEs) 12:10 Why EY chose zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) 13:25 Evolution of Nightfall from prototype to production 14:03 Early high-value use cases for private transactions 14:33 Smart contracts for enforcing business agreements 15:31 Future of scalable, general-purpose privacy solutions 16:11 Performance improvements in ZKP technology 17:15 Why EY is an Ethereum maxi firm 18:25 Q&A: Other Big Four firms entering blockchain _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇨🇿 *Pragma Prague* Pragma Prague 2025 was held on May 29th at Holešovice Market in Prague, Czech Republic and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. This event was in collaboration with ETH Prague. Watch the full Pragma Prague YouTube Playlist here: ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Paul Brody X: https://x.com/pbrody ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Speakers
Paul Brody is the global blockchain leader at EY (Ernst & Young) and has been a champion of Ethereum and public blockchains for over a decade. Under his leadership, EY has invested heavily in Ethereum, including building a privacy L2 and related technologies and donating them into the public domain. He is the author of “Ethereum for Business - a plain English guide to the use cases that create value”, and he is the chairman of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.