The dual-track exploration of private communication: What does Vitalik's 256 ETH choice reflect

When industry giants put real money on the line, it is both a reward within our industry and a clear market signal pointing toward the future direction.

Vitalik Buterin’s recent donation has stirred waves in the crypto community—he transferred 128 ETH to two privacy messaging apps, Session and SimpleX, totaling over $760,000. The timing of this donation is noteworthy: it came on the eve of the EU “Chat Control” proposal passing, a regulatory move perceived by privacy advocates as a threat to end-to-end encryption.

In his tweet, Vitalik straightforwardly states: “Encrypted communication is vital for digital privacy protection. The next breakthrough lies in enabling permissionless accounts and true metadata protection.”

Market Response Indicates Rising Privacy Narratives

After the donation was announced, Session’s token SESH skyrocketed from $0.04 to around $0.40 within hours, with a weekly increase of over 450%. Behind this market reaction is a revaluation by investors of the privacy infrastructure narrative.

What’s more interesting is that these two applications chosen by Vitalik are virtually unknown to the general public. Why not more established privacy messaging tools? The amount of the donation itself also contains subtle clues—128 may seem arbitrary in decimal, but in binary, it represents 2 to the 7th power. The community interprets this as a deliberate structural investment declaration rather than a casual tip.

Fundamental Differences Between Two Privacy Approaches

Session: Incentivizing Decentralized Network Construction with Tokens

Launched in 2020, Session employs an onion-routing-like privacy architecture. Each message is encrypted in three layers, passing through three random nodes, each decrypting only its own layer, making it impossible to fully trace the source and destination of messages.

The core innovation is the account model: using a 66-character random string as the Session ID, without phone number binding or email verification, severing all ties to real identities. Currently, over 1,500 Session Nodes are distributed across more than 50 countries, with anyone able to participate by staking 25,000 SESH.

In May this year, Session completed an upgrade from the Oxen network to its own Session Network, adopting proof-of-stake consensus. Node operators earn SESH rewards through staking. The circulating supply is about 79 million, with a max supply of 240 million, and over 62 million SESH are locked in staking pools.

In terms of user experience, Session supports text, voice, images, file transfer, and group chats of up to 100 people. However, notification delays and multi-device synchronization are clear shortcomings—an inevitable trade-off of decentralized architecture.

SimpleX: Extreme Privacy and Complete Disembodiment

If Session’s innovation is “no need for a phone number,” SimpleX goes even further—eliminating user IDs altogether.

Founded in London in 2021 by Evgeny Poberezkin, this app generates a one-time message queue address each time you communicate with a new contact. Your conversation address with A and B are completely isolated, with no shared metadata, making it impossible to prove they originate from the same person even under surveillance.

The registration process is thus revolutionary—only a display name is required, all files are stored locally, and the SimpleX server holds zero account information. Adding contacts requires a one-time invitation link or QR code; there is no “search username and add” feature.

Technically, SimpleX Messaging Protocol forwards encrypted messages via relay servers temporarily, with no communication between servers, and messages are deleted upon delivery. It is open source on Github and has passed security audits by Trail of Bits. In 2022, it received seed funding of about $370,000 from Village Global, and even Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey publicly endorsed it.

The cost of this extreme privacy design is that switching devices cannot directly restore chat history; you must re-establish connections with each contact. Large group experiences are also limited due to the lack of centralized member management.

Diverging Business Models: Token Incentives vs. De-financialization

Although both apps pursue privacy, they have chosen completely opposite funding models.

Session follows the typical Web3 route, with the SESH token serving three functions: node staking collateral, node operation rewards, and future membership and domain service settlements. This logic uses economic incentives to ensure network stability and long-term participation of node operators. The surge after Vitalik’s donation reflects a market revaluation of the privacy infrastructure narrative.

SimpleX deliberately rejects issuing tradable tokens. Founder Poberezkin believes speculation would divert from the project’s original intent. It relies on VC funding and user donations (over $25,000 in total donations) to sustain itself, with plans to launch Community Vouchers in 2026—non-tradable, pre-paid server usage coupons with fixed prices, no pre-mining, and no public sale.

This is not just a strategic difference but also a philosophical one about how privacy should be funded. Session’s token model can quickly mobilize capital and participation but exposes itself to price volatility and regulatory risks; SimpleX’s de-financialization maintains purity but limits capital inflow, affecting expansion speed.

Structural Challenges in the Privacy Messaging Sector

Vitalik’s donation tweet openly acknowledges: both applications have obvious shortcomings, and long-term breakthroughs are needed for user experience and security. The challenges he points out are actually common issues faced by decentralized privacy communication:

Decentralization Cost: Centralized apps deliver fast and stable messaging because data is routed through unified servers; decentralized apps require multiple node hops, increasing latency.

Multi-device Sync: Traditional apps restore chat history via account login; decentralized architectures lack central servers, making end-to-end key synchronization complex.

Abuse Prevention: Removing phone number binding protects privacy but opens risks of Sybil attacks and DoS. Centralized platforms naturally filter spam accounts via phone verification; decentralized apps need alternative solutions.

Vitalik’s funding injection, to some extent, is pricing these issues—these are problems worth solving, and solving them requires capital, technology, and long-term patience.

Current Positioning of Privacy Infrastructure

For ordinary users, switching to Session or SimpleX now may be premature, given the experience gaps. But for privacy-conscious users, these two apps are worth downloading and testing to understand the level of “true privacy” they can achieve.

When industry giants are willing to invest real money, it is a form of reward in our industry—and a market vote for the future of privacy messaging. This 256 ETH donation is likely more than just a geek experiment; it’s a strategic endorsement of the entire privacy infrastructure sector.