Vitalik Buterin: Bitcoin prioritized decentralization at the expense of privacy

Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin said at an event in Chiang Mai that Bitcoin had to prioritize decentralization from its initial design, which meant its privacy features were not fully optimized. According to Wu Blockchain, Buterin explained that early cryptographic technology tended to rely on centralized institutions for privacy protection, as it was practically impossible at the time to achieve both decentralization and privacy. He added that with the advancement of privacy technologies like zk-SNARKs over the past decade, parts of the Ethereum ecosystem have begun exploring ways to reintroduce privacy into on-chain systems.