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Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers:

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce recently delivered a powerful address at the Science of Blockchain Conference titled "Peanut Butter & Watermelon: Financial Privacy in the Digital Age". In it, she criticizes the SEC's own surveillance programs (the SEC's Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT)) as invasive, comparing it to tools "found in a dystopian surveillance state," and warns against growing financial surveillance, making a strong case for protecting individuals' rights to use privacy-enhancing technologies.

Peirce argues that fundraising, investing, and transacting in today's financial system increasingly come with a hidden cost: loss of privacy.

She calls for a rethinking of the regulatory frameworks that monitor Americans' financial behavior - many of which rely on outdated laws and assumptions.

Disintermediating technologies - like public blockchains, smart contracts, and zero-knowledge proofs - can restore privacy and freedom in financial transactions. But regulators must allow them to flourish.

• Disintermediation is good: Removing middlemen gives individuals more control and privacy - whether in banking, communication, or information sharing.
• The third-party doctrine is outdated: This legal doctrine assumes you give up......................

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