Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a technically detailed post on X on May 20, 2026, laying out a sequenced set of near-term privacy upgrades for the network. The post names three concrete mechanisms: FOCIL combined with account abstraction, keyed nonces, and an access-layer toolkit called Kohaku.
FOCIL and account abstraction. Fork Choice–enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) require validators to include a defined set of transactions in each block — a proposal that has been under research discussion at ethresear.ch. Paired with account abstraction, which lets smart contracts define their own transaction-validation logic, the combination would make it significantly harder for block producers to censor private transactions. The result is censorship-resistant private transaction submission without requiring a protocol-level overhaul.
Keyed nonces. Ethereum currently uses a single sequential nonce per address, which makes it straightforward to link all transactions from a wallet. Buterin's proposal replaces this with a two-part structure: a nonce key and a nonce sequence. Because different nonce keys are unlinkable to outside observers, users can send transactions that cannot be correlated to a single identity — a direct fix to one of the most persistent on-chain privacy gaps.
Kohaku. The third component addresses a less-discussed leak: the read layer. Even when transaction content is private, an observer watching which RPC nodes a wallet queries can infer what addresses it holds or monitors. Kohaku is an open-source toolkit for private information retrieval (PIR) applied to blockchain reads, letting wallets fetch chain state without revealing which data they asked for.
The post lands in two intersecting contexts. At Consensus Hong Kong earlier this year, institutional participants flagged privacy as a prerequisite for broad blockchain adoption — not a nice-to-have. Without transaction confidentiality and unlinkability, compliance-constrained entities cannot use public blockchains for settlement or custody without exposing counterparty data. Buterin's sequenced roadmap addresses that gap at the protocol level, not through application-layer workarounds.
The Ethereum Foundation is simultaneously mid-restructuring, with high-profile departures reported in recent weeks. A public, technically specific roadmap published directly by Buterin — rather than through a foundation communications channel — reads as a signal about where the network's technical direction is being set, and by whom, during that transition. The three mechanisms outlined are proposals and near-term initiatives. None have shipped.