Blockchain was supposed to free us from the chains of the traditional financial system by enabling everyone to be their own bank and own their data. Yet here we are, 17 years after the Bitcoin whitepaper was published and 11 years after the Ethereum ICO…and the world still functions mostly the same. Many have lamented over “real-world applications” and widespread adoption, but what utility has the space offered, really? If you’ve been to any Web3 conferences in the past few years, you’ve likely experienced this vibe of stagnation. NFT markets, DeFi protocols, tokens – nothing really innovative. Nothing that creates new fundamental value for anyone except the already wealthy elite. Blockchain has always been able to provide some degree of financial sovereignty, but without being able to privately transact, it’s not true freedom. The Web3 industry has been hesitant to address privacy as a core value, not just as an ethical one, but a practical one. It’s hard to build for maximal privacy that is useful, fully self-sovereign, and threat-resistant. Most people simply didn’t want to do it. As a result, enthusiasm to build in this space has plateaued. People are fatigued with the same products doing the same things for maybe a fraction of a cent less or a millisecond faster. When we started building @aztecnetwork in 2017, I wanted to see radical disruption, people building applications, products, and services that enable activities that either scale existing services or open them up to a much wider base of participants. Many people either abandoned cypherpunk ideals to chase a hot narrative, or quit their projects altogether. We kept building for maximal privacy. At @ZuBerlinCity earlier this month I joined a panel on the future of Ethereum, and to my great satisfaction, there has been an enormous shift towards embracing privacy. People are starting to realize that without it, blockchain has no utility, but they still think that enabling privacy in their applications is out of reach. People don’t seem to realize how ready the technology is. It’s not 12 months or 12 years away – privacy is here now, ready to be used. @ZKPassport is a private proof of identity application. @stealthnote_ is a private, anonymous message posting platform. @nemi_fi enables private DeFi transactions. These products are proof that self-sovereignty and financial freedom can be private and secure with blockchain, and this is only the beginning. This space is finally ready to create fundamental value for the world, to disrupt the incumbents. We are ready to break free of our chains.