Crypto was supposed to protect users. Instead, it may have accidentally exposed them.

In this episode of The Privacy Podcast, host Ben Schiller sits down with Azeem Khan and Bobbin Threadbare, co-founders of Miden, to unpack a hard truth: most blockchains today are not private, and that’s a massive problem.

What many users believe is anonymous is anything but. And as AI rapidly advances, the illusion of privacy is collapsing even faster.

“In the next two years… you type in someone’s address and get their full history.”

This conversation explores why privacy isn’t just a feature upgrade, it’s a requirement for survival and how Miden is building a new generation of blockchain designed to fix it.

Why This Matters

Right now, every transaction on most blockchains is permanently visible. That means your salary, your spending habits, your assets, all exposed. And the consequences are already showing up. From targeted attacks to real-world safety risks, transparency at this level isn’t empowering, it’s dangerous.

“Transparent blockchains are almost perfect surveillance tools.”

Azeem and Bobbin make it clear: if privacy solutions don’t scale quickly, the industry risks undermining its own foundation.

What We Cover

• Why most blockchains today are fundamentally not private
• How AI is accelerating the collapse of pseudo-anonymity
• The real-world risks of exposing financial data on-chain
• What makes Miden a third-generation blockchain
• How zero-knowledge proofs unlock privacy + scalability
• Why computation is moving client-side instead of on-chain
• The trade-offs between decentralization, privacy, and security
• Why launching centralized first may actually be safer
• The future of blockchain: from finance to healthcare and beyond

Privacy is existential for crypto, and without it, adoption will stall or potentially fail. What many consider anonymity today is largely an illusion, as AI is rapidly making deanonymization cheap and nearly instantaneous. At the same time, full transparency introduces real risks, exposing users to surveillance and even physical harm. Zero-knowledge technology offers a path forward by enabling privacy without sacrificing trust, and the next generation of blockchains is already being built with these principles at its core.

The Bottom Line

Crypto promised a better system. But without privacy, it may recreate something worse.

Azeem and Bobbin aren’t just building another blockchain, they’re building infrastructure for a future where users don’t have to choose between transparency and safety.

Because the next phase of this industry won’t be defined by speed or scale…

It will be defined by whether users can exist without being exposed.

🔗 About the 👤 Guest  

Azeem Khan 

• LinkedIn:
   https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeemkhan
• X (Twitter):
   https://x.com/azeemkhan

Bobbin Threadbare 

• X (Twitter):
   https://x.com/bobbinth

🌐 Miden
Website:
 miden.xyz 

About the Show

The Privacy Podcast by Miden explores the intersection of privacy, identity, and emerging technologies. Hosted by Ben Schiller, the show brings together builders, regulators, and thinkers shaping what comes next in a world where data is power.

Executive Producer Michele Musso
Edited by the Musso Media Team
Music: licensed.
All rights reserved. ©2026 Musso Media 

What if it actually belonged to you?

In this episode of The Privacy Podcast, host Ben Schiller talks with Wayne Chang, Founder of Spruce ID, to explore one of the most overlooked problems in tech today: identity.

From logging into websites to accessing healthcare, our digital identities are fragmented, insecure, and often completely out of our control. Chang breaks down how we got here and why the current system, built on emails, passwords, and centralized platforms, is fundamentally broken.

“We want users to control their data flows like a water faucet… under their control.”

From “Sign-In with Ethereum” to government-backed digital credentials, this conversation explores a future where identity is portable, private, and owned by the individual.

Why This Matters

Right now, your identity lives everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

It’s stored in silos across platforms, vulnerable to breaches, and increasingly easy to fake in an era of AI-generated everything.

And the cracks are starting to show.

Chang points to a near-future where identity fraud becomes scalable, cheap, and nearly impossible to detect using today’s systems.

“We’re going to reach a precipice moment where attacks get cheap enough to execute at scale.”

The result? A complete breakdown of trust online.

But there’s another path forward, one built on cryptography, decentralization, and user control.

What We Cover

• Why today’s identity systems are a “patchwork” and fundamentally insecure
• How AI and deepfakes are exposing major flaws in digital verification
• The origin and impact of Sign-In with Ethereum
• What digital credentials actually are and why they matter
• Why governments, healthcare, and finance are key to fixing identity
• The Utah model and a new policy-first approach to digital ID
• Why identity should be human-centric, not platform-centric
• The role of decentralized protocols in rebuilding trust online
• How identity unlocks real-world blockchain use cases

The Bottom Line

The internet made it easy to connect. It did not make it safe to trust.

Wayne Chang is building toward a future where identity is no longer something you hand over, but something you control.

Because in the next phase of the internet, the most important question won’t be what platform you use…

It will be who you are and whether you can prove it.

🔗 About the 👤 Guest  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waynebuilds/
Personal Website: https://wycd.net 

Company Website (SpruceID): https://www.spruceid.com

X (Twitter): https://x.com/wycdd

Author page (SpruceID blog): https://blog.spruceid.com/author/wayne/

About the Show

The Privacy Podcast by Miden explores the intersection of privacy, identity, and emerging technologies. Hosted by Ben Schiller, the show brings together builders, regulators, and thinkers shaping what comes next in a world where data is power.

Executive Producer Michele Musso
Edited by the Musso Media Team 

Music:  licensed.

All rights reserved. ©2026 Musso Media 

For years, privacy in crypto lived in the shadows, debated, misunderstood, and often avoided by institutions afraid of regulatory fallout.
That changed fast.

In this episode of The Privacy Podcast, host Ben Schiller sits down with Paul Brody, the founder of Nightfall Networks and former Global Blockchain Leader at EY and Chairman of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, to unpack a pivotal moment for the industry.

From the fallout of Tornado Cash sanctions to the quiet acceleration of enterprise adoption, Brody explains why privacy has moved from theory to execution and why businesses are no longer asking if they need it, but how fast they can implement it.

“We went from being terrified of going to prison… to full speed ahead.”

This conversation reframes privacy not as secrecy, but as a strategic requirement for operating in a transparent, data-driven world.

Why This Matters

The internet was built on visibility. Blockchain made that visibility permanent.

That’s a problem for businesses.

Without privacy, companies expose supply chains, payment flows, and competitive strategies in real time. And as analytics tools become more advanced, even “hidden” transactions aren’t truly hidden.

Brody makes it clear: institutional adoption of blockchain cannot happen without privacy. Full stop.

“Everything that works beautifully without privacy basically breaks under privacy.”

But this isn’t about going dark. It’s about creating a new balance, one where transactions remain verifiable, regulators maintain oversight, and companies protect what matters most.

The result? A future where privacy isn’t a feature. It’s the foundation.

What We Cover

• Why institutions went from “too risky” to “full speed ahead” on privacy
• The real difference between privacy and anonymity
• How blockchain transparency is breaking traditional business models
• Why analytics tools make basic “mixing” obsolete
• The role of zero-knowledge technology in enterprise adoption
• Why consumers don’t drive privacy adoption but institutions do
• The hidden cost of privacy and why it’s still worth it
• What “agentic commerce” means and why it depends on private infrastructure
• Why future digital assets won’t move in and out of privacy, they’ll live inside it

The Bottom Line

The narrative around privacy is changing. This isn’t about hiding. It’s about operating.

And as enterprises move in, they’re bringing a new standard with them, one where privacy is built in, not bolted on.
Because in a fully transparent world, the most valuable thing a business can have… is control over what it reveals.

🔗 About the 👤 Guest  

LinkedIn: Connect with Paul Brody on LinkedIn

Company / Work (EY Blockchain): https://blockchain.ey.com
 
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (Chairman role): https://entethalliance.org

About the Show

The Privacy Podcast by Miden explores the intersection of privacy, identity, and emerging technologies. Hosted by Ben Schiller, the show brings together builders, regulators, and thinkers shaping what comes next in a world where data is power.

Executive Producer Michele Musso
Edited by the Musso Media Team 
Music:  licensed.
All rights reserved. ©2026 Musso Media 

Privacy has always been framed as a binary: total anonymity or full transparency. But what if that framing is wrong?

In the debut episode of The Privacy Podcast by Miden, host Ben Schiller sits down with Evin McMullen to unpack one of the most urgent debates shaping the future of the internet: Can privacy truly scale without compromise?

Drawing from a live debate between privacy “maximalists” and pragmatists, this conversation cuts through ideology and gets real about what it actually takes to bring decentralized technologies into the mainstream.

From the rise of bots and AI agents to the evolving role of governments and regulation, this episode explores how privacy is no longer just a principle. It is becoming infrastructure.

Why This Matters

We are entering a moment where more than half of online interactions are no longer human. Identity is fragmented. Trust is eroding. And the systems designed to protect us were never built for this scale.

This episode makes one thing clear:
Privacy is not a feature. It is a fragile outcome shaped by technology, regulation, and design decisions happening right now.

And the stakes are not theoretical. They are deeply human.

What We Cover

 • The real debate: privacy maximalism vs practical adoption
 • Why “perfect privacy” may prevent real-world scale
 • How zero-knowledge proofs are changing data sharing
 • The rise of bots and non-human actors online
 • Why governments and institutions are leading adoption faster than expected
 • The growing tension between regulation, surveillance, and user protection
 • How AI agents are reshaping trust, identity, and consent
 • The hidden cost of compliance for businesses handling sensitive data
 • Why privacy is ultimately about control, not secrecy

About the 👤 Guest  

• LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/evin-mcmullen
X (Twitter)
https://x.com/provenauthority

• Billions Network
https://www.billions.network 

Key Takeaways

• Privacy is not about hiding. It is about control over disclosure
 • Absolute privacy is often incompatible with real-world adoption
 • Zero-knowledge technology enables proof without exposure and changes everything
 • Regulation will likely shape the future faster than consumer choice
 • AI is accelerating both the risks and the urgency around privacy
 • The next evolution of the internet depends on verifiable identity without sacrificing personal data

Notable Insight

“Privacy is not a product. It is an end state achieved through the absence of disclosure.”

About the Show

The Privacy Podcast by Miden explores the intersection of privacy, identity, and emerging technologies. Hosted by Ben Schiller, the show brings together builders, regulators, and thinkers shaping what comes next in a world where data is power.

Executive Producer Michele Musso
Edited by the Musso Media Team 

Music: Adrian Walther “Fuel the Fire” licensed.
All rights reserved. ©2026 Musso Media 

In this intro to the show, Ben Schiller, Head of Communications at Miden and former CoinDesk journalist, shares why privacy is the missing layer of the internet and the key to real blockchain adoption.

From fixing the surveillance-driven internet model to enabling institutions and enterprises to operate securely on-chain, this is about building the next era of the internet.

Over the coming episodes, Privacy Podcast will feature leading voices across blockchain, privacy tech, and digital rights, exploring what it takes to create a more secure, scalable, and trusted future.

This is where privacy meets progress.

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Produced and Edited by the Musso Media Team 

All rights reserved. ©2026 Musso Media