$ALEO On March 6, 2026, in a video published by The Tie channel titled "Confidential by Design: How Privacy Protocols and Chains Are Unlocking Institutional Use Cases," a professional and pragmatic roundtable discussion delved deep into how privacy protocols have become key drivers for institutional cryptocurrency adoption. Moderator Jacqueline Kwok invited multiple heavyweight guests from the industry, including Melvis Langyintuo, Executive Director of Canton Foundation, Dr. Benjamin Beckmann, Chief Technology Advisor of @MidnightNetwork, Howard Wu, Founder of Aleo, Omar Azhar, Head of Business Development at Matter Labs, and Rob Shearer, Chief Business Officer of Paradex.

They engaged in dialogue around the core theme that "privacy is not a binary choice, but rather a necessary selective confidentiality in institutional workflows," emphasizing that privacy must be designed from the protocol foundation to truly unlock trillion-dollar use cases such as real-world asset tokenization, payments, and trading.

The guests directly addressed the biggest pain points of institutional adoption. Howard Wu used crypto salary payments as an example, pointing out that when issuing salaries in USDC on Ethereum or Solana, wallet addresses are immediately visible, and colleague compensation is instantly exposed, which is a "nightmare" for HR departments. He proposed that only privacy stablecoins can solve such problems.

Omar Azhar focused on tokenized deposits, acknowledging that single-bank internal scenarios are already viable, but cross-institutional coordination remains a bottleneck. Melvis Langyintuo added that over 90% of real-world transactions are conducted in point-to-point secrecy, and the lack of on-chain privacy is the biggest obstacle to mass adoption. Rob Shearer approached from a trading angle, emphasizing that the entire pre-trade, trade, and post-trade workflow must be confidential, otherwise risks of strategy leakage or position hunting will deter institutions.

These cases collectively highlight that privacy is no longer a "nice-to-have" feature, but rather "essential infrastructure" for institutional participation.

The guests unanimously agreed that privacy must be "by design," not retrofitted later.

Howard Wu criticized the current ephemeral address solutions on Ethereum or Solana as still being a "UX nightmare," because traces like gas fees will link transactions, rendering privacy ineffective.

Benjamin Beckmann, representing the Midnight project, emphasized that privacy should be a native attribute of the protocol, allowing users to flexibly control disclosure levels.

Omar Azhar predicted that privacy will soon become a mandatory feature, as ZK proof efficiency improves by over 10 times annually, and with built-in compliance engines maturing, this trend is irreversible.

On the regulatory front, new regulations like the GENIUS Act are paving the way for institutions, making privacy and compliance no longer opposed, but rather mutually embedded. The discussion reached a climax in the asset tokenization phase.

Howard Wu proposed the concept of a "privacy spectrum": different metadata can independently be set to private or public, for example, anonymous donors but public recipients, or hidden amounts but disclosed identity.

Rob Shearer pointed out that institutions care most about pre-trade confidentiality and clearing point hiding.

Melvis emphasized configurable privacy controls, allowing on-chain systems to satisfy regulatory transparency while protecting commercial secrets. Regarding typical bank concerns—security audits, interoperability, preventing malicious participants, compliance without full transparency, and "true ownership rather than IOUs"—the guests provided practical answers: vertical integration from protocol to application layer is necessary, coupled with legacy system interfaces, and resolving legal challenges through perfect on-chain property registration. Different distribution channels have different needs; large asset managers may need complete asset rights, while emerging markets can first transition using digital twins.

At the end of the video, it envisioned the minimum viable stack for institutional adoption: underlying privacy protocol + embedded compliance engine + seamless interoperability.

These three key elements will make "settlement as compliance" a reality, driving the transition from traditional IOUs to native on-chain ownership.

The guests also shared entry points for their respective projects: Aleo's Shield wallet, Midnight's open-source community and Discord, Canton's developer fund, Paradex's zero-fee privacy DEX, and zkSync's institutional-grade stack.

The entire discussion was low-key and rational, clearly conveying a consensus that privacy protocols are shifting from the periphery to the center. Only by building infrastructure that is "selectively confidential, compliance-friendly, and institutionally trustworthy" can cryptocurrency truly enter the mainstream financial system and usher in the next era of exponential growth.