What about the Secret Network? Doesn't that count as programmable privacy? It's good that we have such projects, but they're still the minority compared to the rest of the pack. Most developers are afraid of building privacy projects out of fear from the governments. That makes me wonder whenever programmable privacy will have a future at all?



Funny thing is that ZK-STARKS also promised to remove the issue of a trusted setup. Yet, for some reason, developers chose another path with the introduction of Halo2. Even if they finally removed the trusted setup, Zcash still hasn't "shielded" coins held on t-addresses. These are usable on-chain, despite the fact that the ZEC protocol started enforcing shielded transactions by default.

I've seen some exchanges requiring users to deposit with a T-address instead of a Shielded address. The purpose of privacy is ultimately defeated by doing this. That's why no other privacy coin can beat Monero. With regulations getting stricter each day, I doubt the competition will survive in the long run.