Today, Vitalik Buterin revealed a new concept of stealth NFTs via Twitter. In short, the option means part of each NFT transaction would become private. By using stealth NFTs, we would no longer see who received a certain NFT – and gas fees might be higher too.
Of course, this controversial idea was heavily debated among NFT community members. Is it good after all?
Vitalik Buterin revealed a new solution to increase blockchain privacy: stealth NFTs. Credit: Instagram
What did Vitalik Buterin say about stealth NFTs?
Today, August 8th, Vitalik Buterin explained his latest idea for digital asset transactions: stealth addresses for NFTs. The Ethereum co-founder revealed the concept on a programming forum and via Twitter too.
This new concept involves hiding the public identity of an NFT recipient. To clarify, we would no longer be able to see who received a certain digital asset.
“You can send an ERC721 to “vitalik.eth” and I can see it, but no one else can see that vitalik.eth received an ERC721; they will just see that someone received an ERC721”, he explained.
To begin with, this idea would bring plenty of privacy to the blockchain. After all, one of the building bricks of the NFT market has been transparency – but will it remain so?
The Ethereum co-founder shared his idea via Twitter. Credit: Twitter
How did the NFT community react?
The NFT community immediately reacted to Vitalik Buterin’s stealth NFTs idea. Some users supported the concept, claiming that transparent blockchain was never a desire:
“We have transparent blockchains not because we wanted that but because we didn’t have the tech to make them private”, user @Quiark wrote in a tweet.
Nevertheless, many other users were completely against it. Collectors believe that stealth NFTs allegedly defy the purpose of the blockchain. Others claimed Vitalik Buterin doesn’t understand the NFT world and the community’s desires.
In addition, some users are wondering how this option would impact royalties. For example, Twitter user @burcin.eth asked whether the creator royalties would be distributed properly with stealth NFTs too.
To conclude, Vitalik Buterin’s take on stealth NFTs is a unique low-tech concept. Regardless of the NFT community’s reaction, it would likely take quite a while until this idea turns into reality.
