01 December 2025
The Holy Grail of Crypto Privacy: Encrypted Ethereum, FHE & Living Forever | Rand Hindi, Zama Co-Founder
Bankless
About
Ethereum is transparent by design, and that’s a problem if you don’t want your entire financial life on display.
Rand Hindi, co-founder of Zama, joins us to explain how fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) can turn Ethereum into an encrypted, confidential blockchain where contracts stay composable and UX feels exactly the same.
We get into why blockchains were public in the first place, why “anonymous addresses” were never enough, how FHE compares to ZK and MPC, and what a world of private DeFi, encrypted stablecoins, and on-chain “digital immortality” could look like.
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BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:
🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS
https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow
🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN
https://bankless.cc/fraxnet
🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN
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🛞MANTLE | MODULAR L2 NETWORK
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💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP
https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:24 Why Are Blockchains Public?
9:11 Privacy vs Confidentiality
11:13 Zama: Privacy on Ethereum
15:05 Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE)
19:34 Multi-Party Computation (MPC)
23:50 FHE vs ZK
37:25 FHE Critiques
40:08 Nation State Attacks
45:58 Combining ZK & FHE
49:20 Privacy Season
51:39 Compliance
1:00:18 Zama
1:04:03 Confidential Tokens
1:08:12 How it Works
1:11:30 Zama Token & Protocol
1:14:09 Privacy Competitors
1:17:36 Fhenix
1:19:46 Rand’s Background
1:23:07 AI Privacy
1:26:42 Longevity
1:33:01 Crypto & Privacy in 2026
1:33:33 Closing & Disclaimers
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RESOURCES
Rand Hindi
https://x.com/randhindi
Zama
https://www.zama.org/
Fhenix
https://www.fhenix.io/
Unit Ventures
https://github.com/randhindi/unit-vc
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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
Rand Hindi, co-founder of Zama, joins us to explain how fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) can turn Ethereum into an encrypted, confidential blockchain where contracts stay composable and UX feels exactly the same.
We get into why blockchains were public in the first place, why “anonymous addresses” were never enough, how FHE compares to ZK and MPC, and what a world of private DeFi, encrypted stablecoins, and on-chain “digital immortality” could look like.
------
📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24
https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium
------
BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:
🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS
https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow
🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN
https://bankless.cc/fraxnet
🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN
https://bankless.cc/unichain
🛞MANTLE | MODULAR L2 NETWORK
https://bankless.cc/Mantle
💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP
https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep
------
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:24 Why Are Blockchains Public?
9:11 Privacy vs Confidentiality
11:13 Zama: Privacy on Ethereum
15:05 Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE)
19:34 Multi-Party Computation (MPC)
23:50 FHE vs ZK
37:25 FHE Critiques
40:08 Nation State Attacks
45:58 Combining ZK & FHE
49:20 Privacy Season
51:39 Compliance
1:00:18 Zama
1:04:03 Confidential Tokens
1:08:12 How it Works
1:11:30 Zama Token & Protocol
1:14:09 Privacy Competitors
1:17:36 Fhenix
1:19:46 Rand’s Background
1:23:07 AI Privacy
1:26:42 Longevity
1:33:01 Crypto & Privacy in 2026
1:33:33 Closing & Disclaimers
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RESOURCES
Rand Hindi
https://x.com/randhindi
Zama
https://www.zama.org/
Fhenix
https://www.fhenix.io/
Unit Ventures
https://github.com/randhindi/unit-vc
------
Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures