Vitalik wrote a proposal on how to secretly use AI large language models

Original Title: “Vitalik Wrote a Proposal to Teach You How to Secretly Use AI Large Models”

Original Compilation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Everyone around the world is talking about AI, and the discussions about crypto have quieted down quite a bit.

Meanwhile, ETH has been hovering around 2000 for nearly two months. Whatever Vitalik says or does, it seems not many people are paying attention anymore.

But recently, I checked his X account and found that AI has influenced us more than we realize. Over the past month, a large portion of his posts are related to AI, even to the level of detailed technical solutions.

The most noteworthy is a proposal he co-authored with Davide Crapis, head of AI at the Ethereum Foundation, posted on ethresear.ch on February 11, titled “ZK API Usage Credits.”

In one sentence: Use zero-knowledge proofs to let you call large AI models anonymously.

Currently, whether you’re using ChatGPT or calling Claude’s API, the payment method is the same:

Register an account, link your email, link your credit card.

Every conversation, every prompt you send, the platform knows it’s you. What you asked, when you asked, how many times — all tied to your real identity.

Vitalik and Crapis’ proposal offers an alternative.

1. Users deposit a sum of money into a smart contract, for example, 100 USDC.

2. The contract registers this deposit on an encrypted list on the blockchain. Afterwards, each time you call the API, you don’t need to show your identity—just generate a zero-knowledge proof.

3. It can prove two things to the service provider: you are on the list, and your balance is sufficient. But the proof itself doesn’t reveal which one you are on the list.

The service provider receives the payment and can prevent abuse, but from start to finish, they don’t know who you are.

You can interpret this proposal as a statement: that Vitalik believes in the AI era, users shouldn’t have to give up their identities to use AI tools.

This proposal is still in the research phase and not yet practical. Major AI model providers might not agree with such an approach; meanwhile, the comment section is full of rebuttals and doubts, arguing that AI model companies will always find ways to identify you.

But I think the significance of this proposal isn’t solely whether it can be implemented.

Privacy has been a ten-year focus for Vitalik. From early support for Tornado Cash to promoting zero-knowledge proofs as a core Ethereum technology, this thread has never been broken. However, in recent years, privacy in the crypto industry has lacked a compelling story to carry it forward.

AI has filled that gap. When you talk to large models more than anyone else, privacy becomes a real need.

Vitalik Embraces AI

Since February, a significant portion of what Vitalik posts on X relates to AI, with such density that it doesn’t seem like casual chatter.

Yesterday, he posted a long message saying he recently attended a cryptography conference where people cared about privacy, open source, anti-censorship… but had no emotional connection to blockchain.

Among that crowd, he conducted a thought experiment:

Forget “we are Ethereum community,” start from zero, and think about where Ethereum is most useful.

His conclusion is that the fundamental value of Ethereum is as a bulletin board—a place where anyone can write, anyone can read, and no one can modify or delete.

In the context of AI, this might be the most important statement Vitalik has made in the past two years.

We are entering an era of generating infinitely cheap content. Text, images, videos, identities—all can be mass-produced by AI. When everything can be forged, what becomes scarce?

All these questions ultimately point to the same place: a public, persistent, irreversible data layer. And a record that no one can tamper with is exactly what Ethereum can provide.

Over the past two years, criticisms of Ethereum can be summarized as: what do you have that others can’t replace?

Now, it seems Vitalik hasn’t directly answered this question.

However, over the past year, the Ethereum Foundation has done a few seemingly small things: assembled a 50-person privacy team, established a nearly 50-person privacy research group, released the Kohaku privacy framework, and appointed an AI lead; the 2026 roadmap prioritizes institutional privacy and faster transaction confirmation.

Looking back at his intense output over the past month, most of it revolves around privacy and efficiency issues for Ethereum in the AI context.

I believe Vitalik is betting on one thing: the more powerful AI becomes, the more rigid the demand for privacy and verification infrastructure will be. Whether Ethereum can meet this demand is another matter, but he has clearly chosen his table.

ETH is still hovering around 2000. Most people still aren’t paying much attention to what he’s been saying lately.

But perhaps, in a few years, the thing worth paying attention to is this very period.