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Understanding Ethereum Users’ Risk Perceptions and Privacy Practices

Research paper submitted for review in 2025

Abstract

Privacy is a critical, unresolved challenge for blockchain adoption, and Ethereum is no exception. While privacy-preserving tools hold great promise, it’s widely known that many users shy away from using them, mainly due to a lack of awareness/knowledge or ease of use (Ghesmati et al., 2022). To successfully overcome the privacy paradox, — the gap between users’ privacy attitudes and their actual behaviour — it is essential for Ethereum to understand end users’ different risk perceptions and privacy practices when it comes to adopting privacy solutions and thus, resolving privacy issues on a larger scale. This will help to identify users’ privacy skills, along with potential misunderstandings and blind spots related to privacy issues. Based on the study’s findings, Ethereum will be able to address usability issues in current privacy solutions and make sure to maintain its reputation as a secure and trustworthy platform amid evolving privacy challenges.

Project Team

The project team consists of two academic researchers (both postdoc level; social sciences and information sciences) and one active industry member from the Web3PrivacyNow team. All of us are well-versed researchers in the blockchain space. We will be working on this project with a combined effort of 1.5 FTE load (~220 hours per month) over 5-6 months:

Annika Aebli / Josey

Social scientist, PostDoc, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

  • Privacy enthusiast and expert in user-centric design solutions; principal investigator; responsible for project conceptualisation, data collection and analysis, and reporting (80 hours per month over a time period of ~ 6 months).
  • Head of the social science lab at Beets.fi; medium articles Josey: https://medium.com/@joseybeets
  • Recent blockchain studies forthcoming in top-tier academic journals such as Frontiers in Blockchain

Simin Ghesmati

Information scientist, PostDoc, University of Vienna, Austria

  • PhD on Privacy and Usability Aspects of Public Blockchains
  • Expert in Blockchain privacy techniques and their usability; assisting researcher in conceptualisation of the project; main researcher responsible for data collection and analysis process (80 hours per month over a time period of ~ 4 months).

Piergiorgio Catti De Gasperi

Web3PrivacyNow

  • Expert in the social and political impact of cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, and distributed systems in empowering individual autonomy, protecting freedoms, and creating systems that resist censorship; responsible for participant outreach and expert interviews (60 hours per month over a time period of ~ 3 months)
  • Core Team at CryptoCanal (ETHDam) and Urbe.eth (ETHRome)