Privacy Power Hour #1 — ZCash and the Beginning of Privacy Season Recap

Host: Justin Giudici, Product Lead at Telos

Date: October 28 2025

Duration: ~45 min

Theme: The resurgence of privacy narratives in Web3 and Telos’ path toward real-world, privacy-enabled adoption.

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🎙 Opening

Justin kicked off the first Privacy Power Hour by welcoming an open community discussion on the growing movement around on-chain privacy. He framed this inaugural session as the start of an ongoing series designed to gather builders, advocates, and users around privacy-driven innovation — particularly as Telos prepares to launch its new privacy layer.

🌍 Why Privacy Matters

“It’s crazy that all these public networks — Telos included, Ethereum, Solana — are offering completely transparent transactions when almost every system in Web 2 relies on privacy.”

Justin emphasized that privacy is not a niche feature or a tool for nefarious use; it’s a prerequisite for real-world adoption.

Most people expect their financial activity to be private — just as card payments or bank transfers are. Yet Web3 users currently broadcast every transaction publicly. Telos sees this gap as both a philosophical and market opportunity.

💥 Zcash’s Surge and the Dawn of “Privacy Season”

The discussion turned to Zcash ($ZEC), which recently saw a 460 % monthly and 780 % yearly price rise. Justin attributed this to renewed interest in privacy, fueled by influencers like @0xMert_ and the upcoming Zcash halving.

He framed this as a broader narrative shift — “Privacy Season” — noting that the excitement around ZEC is spilling over to other privacy-related ecosystems and proving that user demand for privacy assets is real.

“This is one of the first times a Bitcoin-derived chain has started to gain ground again. That’s huge for all privacy projects — Telos included.”

🧠 Privacy Beyond Single Coins

Justin contrasted Telos’ approach with legacy privacy coins like Monero and Zcash:

• Those allow only their native coins to be shielded.
• Telos aims to shield any asset — ERC-20s, NFTs, stablecoins, even interactions with smart contracts.

This network-level approach unlocks real-world use cases like:

• Payroll in stablecoins where salary confidentiality matters.
• Cross-asset private transfers (USDC, ETH, TLOS).
• Smart-contract privacy, enabling DeFi apps to operate without leaking user positions.

“We’re building a network layer that can provide privacy for everything — from payments to NFTs — not just one coin.”

🔧 Telos Privacy Layer — Technical & Timeline

Development Partner: Protofire DAO

Status: On track for launch by end of 2025/start of 2026

Initial Focus:

• Private transfers for Telos, USDC, and possibly ETH
• Web + desktop wallet releases first (mobile later)
• Initial Core focus on regular transactions, payroll and remittances

Next Phase:

• Smart-contract interactions
• Expansion of shielded asset pools (to improve anonymity sets)
• Integration of SNARKtor (hyper-scaling backend tech) into the layer

“Privacy strength grows with pool size. We’ll be careful about which assets we add first and make sure there’s enough liquidity before opening smart-contract interactions.”

💬 Audience Q&A Highlights

Evan: Asked about progress on the SmartCore / SNARKtor campaign.

→ Justin: SNARKtor is live on Telos Zero, with docs available. The EVM connection is coming soon, allowing developers to tap directly into the privacy layer.

Brett: Asked what will initially be private and what the long-term vision looks like.

→ Justin: Phase 1 will focus on private transfers of major assets; future goals include ZK identity, where users can privately verify and monetize data (like medical records or age) without revealing their identity.

“Right now everyone’s posting their transactions and net worth on a billboard. That has to change.”

🚀 Closing Thoughts

Justin closed by reinforcing that this was just the beginning:

• Future Privacy Power Hours will bring in developers and special guests.
• The goal is to grow an open community movement around privacy, not competition.
• Telos’ long-term vision is to make privacy mainstream and accessible to real-world users — starting with practical use cases like payroll, payments, and identity.

“We’re only serving 1 % of users today with public transparent transactions. Privacy is how we onboard the other 99 %.”

Summary

Privacy Season - The Zcash rally is reviving market interest and cultural legitimacy for privacy-first projects.

Telos Vision - Build a hyper-scalable privacy layer where any asset can be shielded — not just native coins.

Partnerships - Protofire DAO is leading the build.

Use Cases - Payroll, stablecoin payments, DeFi privacy, and eventually ZK identity.

Community - Privacy Power Hour will evolve into a recurring community session for those interested in web3 privacy

Originally published on X: Privacy Power Hour #1 — ZCash and the Beginning of Privacy Season Recap