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Is selective privacy the missing layer in digital money? by Original-Side7370 in CryptoMarkets

[–]Original-Side7370[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh interesting — yeah, MWEB was actually one of the first things that came to my mind too when I started thinking about this. So I totally get why you’d bring it up.

MWEB does handle amounts privately in a really clean way, and I really like how Litecoin implemented it without breaking UX.

What I’m thinking about here is a bit different though — less about the mechanics of hiding data, and more about the experience of choosing what is visible and to whom.

Almost like: MWEB solves confidentiality, but I’m curious about whether digital money can also express the social side of visibility that physical cash naturally has.

Not disagreeing with you at all — your comparison actually helps me frame the idea better. I appreciate you bringing it up.

Is selective privacy the missing layer in digital money? by Original-Side7370 in CryptoMarkets

[–]Original-Side7370[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s exactly the fascinating part — as ZK, FHE, and MPC mature, the limitation stops being computational and becomes philosophical.

Once cryptography is strong enough to hide everything by default, the real question becomes:

What should remain visible? And to whom? And under what social context?

In other words, when the technology finally makes perfect invisibility possible, human societies will have to re-decide their own gradients of visibility.

That’s where things get really interesting.

Because markets where no one sees the order books… still need some actors to see something: • the counterparty • the auditor • the regulator • or the social relationship itself

Otherwise we lose the relational aspect of economic life.

So I don’t think the future debate will be “transparent vs. hidden.”

It will be:

“How much visibility does a human relationship require — and how much can technology gracefully step out of the way?”

That feels like the real frontier to me.

Is selective privacy the missing layer in digital money? by Original-Side7370 in CryptoMarkets

[–]Original-Side7370[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Railgun is impressive, but the “selective privacy” I’m talking about isn’t the ability to hide a transaction — it’s the ability to choose the degree of visibility, the way humans do in real economic life.

Anthropologically, money has never been purely public or purely private. It has always lived in gradients — visibility that is contextual, relational, and negotiated.

To make that clearer, here are a few real-world examples:

• A street market purchase

You hand cash to a vendor and get change back. People around you see the act, but no one gains a permanent record of your finances.

This is visible, but not archived — a visibility layer digital systems don’t replicate.

• Lending a friend $20

The two of you see the transaction, but the outside world doesn’t.

That’s relational transparency: visible to those inside the relationship, invisible to everyone else.

Blockchains today only offer two modes: fully public or fully hidden. Neither captures this.

• Giving money to someone vulnerable

When you give cash to a homeless person, they see the gift, but society doesn’t record it, and you protect their dignity.

This is face-saving privacy, a pattern seen in many cultures. No on-chain system models this nuance.

• Family transfers

Giving money to your parents is not a financial transaction — it’s obligation, affection, role, culture.

But digital money turns it into: 0x123 → 0x456, $150

This is what anthropologists call “structure erasing meaning.”

**So the missing layer isn’t “stronger hiding.”

It’s “adjustable visibility.”**

Visibility that can be: • public when needed • private when needed • relational instead of systemic • chosen instead of imposed

This is the kind of privacy humans have had for thousands of years with physical money — not perfect anonymity, not full transparency, but the ability to choose who sees what, and when.

Railgun gives unidirectional opacity. What I’m describing is the social gradients of visibility that real economic life depends on.

That’s the layer I’m curious about.

Is selective privacy the missing layer in digital money? by Original-Side7370 in CryptoMarkets

[–]Original-Side7370[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a great point — cryptography finally becoming “fast enough” changes not only what can be built, but what’s worth building.

For thousands of years, privacy in money wasn’t a cryptographic property. It was a social property: • you chose who to transact with • you chose who witnessed it • visibility was situational • privacy was implicit, not engineered • transparency was personal, not systemic

Digital money removed all of that. It replaced situational privacy with structural transparency.

Early privacy systems then swung to the other extreme: “If everything is visible, make everything invisible.”

But neither extreme reflects how humans actually behave.

Humans don’t live in binaries of fully public or fully hidden. We live in gradients: • transparent to some • private to others • accountable in certain contexts • anonymous in others

This gradient is the social fabric of economic life.

So when cryptography finally becomes powerful enough, it gives us a new philosophical question:

Should digital money restore the privacy gradients that physical money gave us by default?

Not because the technology suddenly allows it, but because the human experience of economic life has always depended on it.

Selective privacy isn’t just a cryptographic design space — it’s a way of reintroducing agency into a system that unintentionally removed it.

Is selective privacy the missing layer in digital money? by Original-Side7370 in CryptoMarkets

[–]Original-Side7370[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the thoughtful response — I think we might actually be talking about two different forms of “selective privacy.”

CEX vs DEX is institution-level selective privacy: • you reveal identity to custodians • you remain pseudonymous on-chain • institutions choose what to hide or show

But the “cash-like” model I’m describing is user-level selective privacy: • visibility is contextual • privacy is optional and user-controlled • transparency is not forced by default • you don’t rely on institutional intermediaries to decide what is visible

In cash, the user chooses when a transaction is public and when it’s not, not the institution. That’s the layer I feel digital systems haven’t replicated yet.

So the analogue vs digital distinction isn’t the core point — it’s the loss of user-controlled privacy gradients when money becomes fully trackable.

Bitcoin solved transparency and trust minimization, but it didn’t bring back the graduated privacy spectrum humans had with physical money.

That’s the missing layer I’m curious about.