The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, transferred around $ 2.6 million in chips on Wednesday thanks to the privacy protocol, in what seems to be both a routine financial transaction and a silent approval of confidentiality based on blockchain.
It is not known how the funds sent to Railgun – which included a mixture of ETH and USDC – were finally used. Railgun is a tool designed to obscure activity on the chain, allowing investors to use decentralized financing protocols (DEFI) without transactions being linked to their personal cryptographic portfolios.
This is not the first time that Buterin has used the protocol. In March, he moved around $ 500,000 via Railgun in a similar transaction. While Buterin did not comment directly on the last transfer, its continuous use of the tool highlights its long -standing advocacy for confidentiality as a basic pillar of Ethereum infrastructure.
Buterin and other Ethereum developers have repeatedly argued that user confidentiality should be treated as a default functionality, not as an optional additional module. In an April article at an Ethereum developer forum, Buterin described several recommended stages to make the blockchain more private.
The pressure for the privacy of the Ethereum community is involved in a meticulous examination of blockchain tools preserving confidentiality by regulators. While Railgun aims to allow legitimate private transactions, similar tools have drawn legal fire.
The torade in cash – once the mixer based on Ethereum most used – was sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in August 2022. The government alleged that the platform had been used to whiten more than a billion dollars, including funds related to the Pirate Group of Lazarus in North Korea.
However, on March 21, 2025, the OFAC officially lifted the sanctions against the Tornado Treasury following a decision of the Federal Court of Appeal according to which the agency had exceeded its authority.
Railgun, described on his website as a “DEFI confidentiality toolbox”, represents a new generation of confidentiality systems built on Ethereum, combining cryptography with zero knowledge with the component of intelligent contracts. This new system, unlike Tornado Cash, incorporates screening features to dissuade illegal transactions.
In particular, in February, Buterin congratulated Railgun for his successful prevention of an attempted money laundering.
Unlike Tornado Cash, which is mainly built to help users transfer funds anonymously, Railgun helps users to interact directly with DEFI protocols – allowing investors to discreetly transform while maintaining total control of their funds.
The project has received the support of certain privacy defenders and developers, who argue that tools like Railgun can serve legal uses such as financial privacy for activists, journalists or cryptographic “whales” that wish to transform with discretion.
After the last Buterin transaction, the native token of Railgun, Rail, experienced a 15% increase in the last 24 hours.
