Bridging Privacy and Public Blockchains: Reflections from the Privacy for Financial Services Workshop

At the inaugural Privacy for Financial Services Workshop hosted by LF Decentralized Trust in New York, a clear signal emerged: privacy is no longer a theoretical aspiration in digital finance. It’s a necessity, and it’s becoming deeply practical.

The event brought together an exceptional group of leaders from banking, financial services, and the decentralized privacy community. It wasn’t about lofty promises or surface-level hype. It was about grounded, honest conversations. The day stood out for the mix of technical deep dives, critical use case analysis, and a shared commitment to building privacy-first systems that scale across jurisdictions, protocols, and institutions.

Protecting Confidentiality Without Compromising Composability

During the workshop, I had the opportunity to introduce a topic that reflects one of our core convictions at Gateway.fm: that public blockchains and privacy can, and must, coexist.

My talk focused on how privacy technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs can enable selective disclosure on public blockchains. This approach allows enterprises to preserve the confidentiality they require while staying connected and interoperable with the broader decentralized ecosystem. Striking this balance is critical for industries like financial services, where innovation must coexist with regulatory and privacy obligations.

As I shared:

• Selective disclosure is not just a useful privacy enhancement. It is a structural requirement for enterprise adoption of blockchain.
• Zero-knowledge–based models make it possible to introduce fine-grained access control, auditability, and compliance directly on open networks.
• These innovations demonstrate that enterprises don’t need to choose between privacy and interoperability. They can achieve both.

Key Takeaways from the Workshop

Several clear themes emerged from the two days of sessions and discussions:

1. Privacy is an Infrastructure Layer

Privacy isn't an afterthought or a feature. It's rapidly becoming a foundational layer of financial architecture. The workshop highlighted how decentralized protocols are beginning to mirror the layered security approach of traditional systems, with privacy built in at the protocol, transaction, and data-access levels.

2. Public Chains + Privacy = The Future

Despite historical leanings toward permissioned systems, there's now growing institutional appetite for leveraging public infrastructure, provided privacy concerns can be addressed. Nightfall, Paladin (an LFDT lab), and others are proving that we can build on open rails without exposing sensitive data.

3. Open Collaboration Is the Only Way Forward

What stood out most was the alignment across participants: that interoperability, open standards, and composable infrastructure are essential to long-term success. This reinforced what we at Gateway.fm believe: siloed solutions won’t scale. Privacy must be programmable, verifiable, and accessible across stacks.

4. Institutional Requirements Are Driving Innovation

From regulatory compliance and access control to auditability and selective transparency, institutions are helping shape the technical roadmap of privacy-preserving tools. The strongest protocols on display were those that meet real-world operational needs without sacrificing decentralization.

Why This Matters for Gateway.fm

The rapid convergence of AI and IoT is pushing us toward the fifth industrial revolution, where intelligent machines and connected devices work seamlessly alongside humans. At the core of this transformation, blockchain emerges as the foundational technology, ensuring trust and resilience in this interconnected world. We are now at a pivotal moment to define how these systems will be designed. At Gateway.fm, ensuring these systems are built with privacy at their core is one of our top priorities.

Looking Ahead

This workshop confirmed that privacy is no longer a blocker—it’s a bridge. And the path forward will be built by collaboration between protocol developers, infrastructure providers, and institutions that understand the stakes.

At Gateway.fm, we’re committed to being part of that collaboration by deploying, integrating, and scaling the privacy-first systems our industry needs.

Thank you to LF Decentralized Trust and Mastercard for creating the space for these essential conversations. The work is just beginning, but the direction is clear.