90% of people have peeked at someone else's wallet address, blockchain privacy issues need improvement

"Have you ever secretly searched someone else's on-chain wallet to view their assets and transaction history?" As more and more investors and institutions enter the cryptocurrency field, privacy issues are becoming increasingly important. Manta Network, a privacy protection solution on the Polkadot network, recently released a privacy survey report, revealing that many people have had experiences of peeking into other people's wallets.

This report surveyed a total of 404 participants, all of whom have experience in cryptocurrency trading, with 90% being male and 40% aged between 29 and 35."

Manta Network Privacy Report

Centralized Exchanges

At the beginning of the report, the trust level of participants in centralized exchanges was investigated. Unlike decentralized exchanges, many centralized exchanges require KYC before use due to regulatory requirements and to some extent, they custody user assets, hence the need for user trust.

Among these participants, Binance is the most trusted by users, followed by Coinbase. Approximately 20% of users do not trust any exchange.

Furthermore, the report further investigated the reasons why these exchanges can earn their trust, finding that users are most concerned about the exchange's brand reputation, followed by security, with regulatory compliance ranking third.

However, although Binance ranks high in brand reputation and security, it received the fewest votes in terms of regulatory compliance.

Decentralized Exchanges

Unlike centralized exchanges, there are several decentralized exchanges on each public chain, each with its own supporters. However, about 1% of the participants in this group are unwilling to use them, mainly due to Gas Fees during transactions and unfamiliarity with the automated market maker (AMM) mechanism.

Privacy Issues

While addresses composed of random codes have properties of confusion and anonymity, monitoring and tracking specific wallet addresses through convenient data analysis tools is actually quite easy. Among this group of respondents, about 84% would be concerned that their identity could be identified through wallet addresses.

However, 90% of the participants admitted to having peeked into others' wallet addresses, mainly those who had engaged in past transaction activities, simply out of curiosity.

The above data may not be surprising, as blockchain privacy protection has always been a hot topic. Through data organization, it can be seen that most people have concerns in this area. With more new users and institutions entering the space, 2022 may bring more reflection and anticipation for more solutions to emerge.