# Privacy Is About Choice, Not Paranoia // Seth For Privacy (Cake Wallet)

- Channel: [Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress](https://streameth.org/ethereum-cypherpunk-congress)
- Date: 2026-05-09
- Duration: 10:27
- Topics: web3, privacy, now, crypto, cryptography, blockchain, data, security, human right, rights, tech, technology, internet, open source, free, freedom, ethereum, hackers, ethics, cypherpunk, dev, developer, dapp, decentralization, bitcoin, computer, surveillance, cyber, peer2peer, p2p, love, solidity, zk, zero knowledge, education, academy, w3pn, cryptographer, zisk, zkvm, seth for privacy
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-nJD7TgW-ZT0
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJD7TgW-ZT0

## Description

In this Academe interview, Seth For Privacy (Cake Wallet) explains privacy as the simple ability to choose what you share and with whom. He highlights that the main barrier to adoption isn’t technology, but user experience—arguing that privacy tools must become easy and accessible for everyone.

Seth also explores the future of privacy in areas like encrypted communication and financial systems, and reflects on the need to move beyond speculation toward real-world use cases. For him, the goal is clear: build tools that empower individuals, restore freedom of choice, and help people connect in more meaningful ways.

Timecodes
00:00 – Introduction: Seth For Privacy (Cake Wallet)
00:17 – Privacy as freedom of choice and control over data
00:56 – The real barrier: poor user experience in privacy tools
01:36 – Making privacy accessible (Signal, Apple examples)
02:08 – Gaps in privacy tech: encrypted email and DeFi
03:00 – Privacy vs usability in financial systems
04:05 – Neo-cypherpunks: merging UX and cryptography
05:18 – Tribalism and incentives in crypto/privacy communities
06:46 – Bridging crypto and open-source through real use cases
07:54 – Storytelling and adoption: proving real-world impact
09:26 – Vision: technology that strengthens human relationships

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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

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!

## Transcript

Hey everybody. I am Seth for privacy, COO of Cake Wallet, host of the Opt Out podcast, and generally freedom tech maximalist. So privacy for me is is honestly quite straightforward. It's not necessarily about being that that strange man living in the woods alone. It's not necessarily about being the most hardcore cypherpunk. It's really about just giving people the ability to choose. We used to have this natural paradigm where we could choose who knew our conversations, who knew who we paid, who knew who we had business deals with. And we've gotten into a place where everyone knows all of those details, and we've lost that choice. So really for me, privacy is just about reclaiming that ability to have individual choice on who you want to be private from, who you want to reveal data to. By far the biggest challenge for privacy adoption, I think, is user experience actually. I think the cryptography, the underlying tools, we've had what we need when it comes to encryption for many many years, honestly decades, we've had the core building blocks that we needed. And really the biggest thing that has been a hurdle to adoption is that that many of the privacy tools have been built really by nerds for nerds. And there are some pros and cons to that, but the the biggest con is that when it's approached by people who have a deep understanding of the technology, but we don't look outside of that, we can build tools that are just far too complex. And I think the the biggest change and where we've seen the greatest adoption of privacy tech over the past few years has been when people are able to build tools where even when you don't necessarily think you care about privacy, even when you're not going above and beyond to find privacy, to reclaim privacy, you can still do it. Signal is a great example of that. Even some of Apple's privacy tech, obviously there are pros and cons to their approaches, but many of their tools as well are those that do provide privacy to individuals who don't even realize that they that they have a need for privacy today. And I think that has to be the goal. I think probably the the the biggest one by far. I think there's really good solutions in messaging. There's really good solutions in browsers. There's really good solutions in VPNs now. I think one of the biggest that has has taken a long time to get here is PGP, basically a way to do email in an encrypted way that is not reliant on a a single provider. We have things like ProtonMail, Proton, I think a fantastic company doing really cool stuff, but you're still limited when you want privacy between Proton to Proton user. I think it would be really fantastic if we could build easy-to-use tools that would allow people to use PGP to encrypt emails even if they're using Gmail, even if they're using Yahoo, uh whatever their their email provider of choice is. It would be fantastic to have tools in a browser that could could handle the encryption like that in a way that they wouldn't even realize. Install a browser extension, have encryption to your emails no matter what provider you're using or the other person is using on the other side. So, I think the the biggest thing, and this is kind of the intersection of cryptocurrency and privacy, but the the biggest thing that's still kind of in the research phase and theoretical is the ability to to use things like DeFi, to use things like stablecoins in a way that is privacy preserving without critical compromises. There have been a lot of people who have kind of tried to do that, but often it's been either a money grab or a marketing play or too early in in terms of technology to actually enable that. Um and I think that's a a big area where we could see growth, cuz a lot of times you either can have privacy or you can do things like DeFi or you can use things like stablecoins, which like stablecoins or not, they're an essential tool right now in much of the world, even a tool for freedom as painful as that is to say, uh temporarily. I don't think that'll last forever. But being able to enable those is is something that we need uh projects like DarkFi that have been doing research on the cutting edge trying to find find ways to solve that. Um but we also will have to be careful that we do that with user experience at the center, which to do it in a way that is achievable and approachable for average people, uh not just for us nerds. I think primarily to me, a neo-cypherpunk is somebody who is merging not only this this central idea of being a cypherpunk, which is to to write code, to to build encryption tools, but but to merge it with that idea of user experience and approachability that I've been talking about. I I think very early on, a lot of the tools that were being built by cypherpunks, because that was all that was really possible, were very very cutting edge, very difficult to use, but fantastic tools. And I think that the biggest shift now will be those who can look at both product and underlying cryptography and find good ways to to merge those together. I think that ultimately is that that kind of next wave of of being a cypherpunk. I think maybe somewhere in there, as a as a resident AI hater, maybe somewhere in there is is the idea of how can we actually leverage AI to help more people become cypherpunks, especially that write code part of being a cypherpunk has been a limiting factor for many people to be able to really be included in that group, I guess. Um but I think that could change. We'll see. Uh AI has a lot of promises that have not panned out so far, but I think that could be part of enabling that, too. The the reasons for tribalism in the privacy space are quite similar to those outside of it. Like, I don't think there's anything really I don't say this in a negative way, but there's not anything unique about the communities in the privacy space in the sense that the vast majority of it is people looking for a place to belong, people looking for a community who they can build a product for, and then often times there's money at stake in deciding if my privacy tool is going to be used, I can profit. if my privacy protocol is going to be funded by grants, I can actually build it. And whenever you have financial incentive at play, whenever you have tokens at play, whenever you have cryptocurrencies like Monero or Zcash at play, you get that just that aggression, that idea that my my my tool has to succeed, and I would rather others fail so that mine can succeed instead of viewing it as a rising tide a rising tide that lifts all boats. Uh and I think that is definitely a a blind spot and a struggle and it's something that that seems consistent throughout the cryptocurrency space and we brought a lot of that into the privacy space. But it's interesting that it's not unique also to the the crypto specific privacy projects. I've seen that throughout the the privacy influencer space, the uh the privacy protocol space as well has been problematic. So it's I I think it's this almost an a natural human desire where I want to find community and then I want to defend that community even if that's actually detrimental to the tool that I'm trying to support or the community I'm trying to build. I think the only real hope for uniting crypto and the free and open source communities is to prove that there are real human use cases for this stuff, that it goes beyond the Degen, that it goes beyond the the perp swaps, that it goes beyond the leverage trading and that that there is much more here. Many of the things that Satoshi promised with Bitcoin, many of the things that Monero, Zcash, etc. have been built on are this idea that in order to have any other human freedoms, we have to have financial freedom. And that that's not something that's achievable with fiat currencies today. That's something that we can only do with cryptocurrencies that are privacy preserving. Um so I think the the onus really falls on us in the crypto communities to not only build the tools, but also tell the stories to show that this thing that I built is not just something that people are using to launder money. It's not just something that people are using to to profit and speculate, but it's something that is actually helping to empower human freedom and flourishing at scale. And that's where that adoption will come in cuz I think that is the uniting piece between the free and open source community and the crypto community, those in the crypto community who are actually serious about human freedom. Which is ultimately the tools themselves should empower the individual, not the corporate entity, not the government. They should bring power back to the individual. And that's the crossover that we have to make and a lot of that will come down to to how good can we be at storytelling and proving that this stuff is actually empowering human freedom. I think from a technical perspective, like thinking about Gen Z's approach to to freedom tech is tricky for me because I think there's a lot It seems like a lot less interest in the technical, in the cryptography, and much more interest in the storytelling. I I think that actually ties back into what I was just saying about tying the crypto and foss communities together. I think very much Gen Z uh and even previous generations are looking for not only looking for places to belong, but looking for causes that are actually helping people. Uh and I think that's one of the biggest biggest things that we can we can teach is telling good stories about how this stuff is actually empowering individuals uh because that will draw in those who are seeking to do something more with their life. I think a a big shift is that no longer are we just trying to find a stable job that I can work at for 40 years and then retire. We want to make sure that the time that we invest actually goes to something that matters. Um and that's a a unique uh offering I think of cypherpunks, of neo-cypherpunks, of foss projects, of serious cryptocurrency projects as well. I think for me it's very hard to envision a utopia. Uh I'm constantly at war between my crypto-anarchist side and my optimist solarpunk side and trying to figure out where the where the middle ground is. But I I think if I had to say like what a utopia looks like, it looks like us using technology to to build communities, not to destroy them. It's us using technology to build better human relationships, not just online on social media, but actual connections in person or globally where it makes sense. Um and ultimately it ultimately it looks like again, back to what is privacy. It comes back to that freedom of choice. I think it if we're able to unlock individuals to choose what kind of money they use, what kind of tools they use, who they talk with, who they reveal information about themselves to, it will help us to build communities and relationships in a way that we haven't been able to for a long time. And I think that's what that utopia looks like is that we we actually become real again.