Good Monday, friends of privacy!

While some of us are still thinking about Monerotopia, let's take a look together on what has happened in the last week. There is new phone from Solana, privacy options now coming even from BigTech and the general public seems to care more and more about privacy each day. After Discord's implementation of Age Verification, mass migration happened leading folks to Matrix.org, thus naming it this week's Tool of the week.

Tool of the week

• Try Matrix, open-source E2EE communication protocol for messaging

Insights

• Matrix sees sudden surge in new users amid Discord mass exodus
• Solana's crypto phone called Saga aims to bring high-level phone where you can store your crypto safely and privately
• ZK API Usage Credits: LLMs and Beyond
• Apple’s new security feature limits cell networks from collecting precise location data
• Cops in Miami and LA bought GEOSpy, AI tool to geolocate people from picture

Knowledge

• Five privacy coins to keep an eye on by Crypto Weekly
• Jarrad Hope's and Peter Ludlow's book Farewell to Westphalia now has a Spanish translation
• Binance's CZ says that Lack of Privacy may be the missing link for crypto payments adoption
• Discord Voluntarily Pushes Mandatory Age Verification Despite Recent Data Breach by EFF
• Proton's step-by-step guide to using business Wi-Fi

Inspiration: Going On(Line) an offering of media from the web

• Publish or Perish: Decentralized Municipal Socialism w/ Boris Mamlyuk by Blockchain Socialist
• Farewell to Westphalia, book about crypto sovereignty and post-nation-state governance, for free here:
• Take our new Academy Course - ZK for not tech, done in collaboration with Oskarth
• Web3 Privacy Now courses in our Academy

Inspiration: Going Off(Line) an offering of IRL events

(new/changes in bold)

• Feb 13-15 - EthBoulder 2026 Boulder, Colorado
• Feb 20 - Tampa Privacy Pop-up St Petersburg, Florida
• Feb 16 - [Ethereum Privacy Gathering] Denver, Colorado
• Feb 17–21 - ETHDenver - Denver, Colorado
• Mar 6-7 - Logos Network's Parallel Society Lisabon
• Mar 1–2 - Crypto Expo Europe - Bucharest, Romania
• Apr 15–16 - Paris Blockchain Week - Paris, France
• May 5-8 - RightsCon Zambia
• May 8-10 - ETHPrague Prague, Czech Republic
• Jun 16-17 - Dapcon 26 Berlin, Germany
• Jun 18-19 - Web3 Summit Berlin, Germany
• Jul 8-12 - DWebCamp Berlin, Germany
• Nov 2 - Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #3 Mumbai, India