"From Street Protests to Production: How Vocdoni Built Private Online Voting",- Jordi Pinyana

Sun, Nov 2, 2025, 12:00 AM

Jordi Pinyana (Vocdoni contributor) shares how a grassroots response to the 2017 Catalan referendum evolved into a production-ready, privacy-preserving voting stack. We cover: why democratic tooling needs UX as simple as “two clicks,” how Vocdoni’s ZK rollup aggregates votes and anchors proofs on Ethereum, real deployments (from unions and professional associations to a top football club’s global fan network), and why Europe’s eID roadmap could unlock mass adoption. Timecodes 00:00 – Intro: Who is Jordi & what is Vocdoni 01:04 – Origin story: Catalan referendum & need for safe digital voting 02:18 – How it works (simple): protocol vs. web app 02:59 – Under the hood: ZK rollup, sequencers, recursion, auditability 04:47 – Why UX must be “two clicks” (grandma test) 05:41 – Real deployments: sports clubs, unions, associations, parties 06:34 – Case study: membership votes that moved national politics 07:36 – From tech to adoption: listening to users, not assumptions 08:58 – Surviving the long sales cycle: mission to money, services funding 09:56 – Beyond Catalonia: EU focus, public blockchain & eID wallet readiness 11:44 – Integrations with major civic platforms (city halls, Brazil, etc.) 12:40 – LATAM opportunity & pro-digital-voting momentum 13:40 – Why privacy is a pillar of democracy (vote, transact, speak) 15:31 – Cypherpunk spirit: open, break, improve for society 16:45 – A better internet: home servers, anonymity, no single choke points 17:52 – Closing ... 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!