Ethereum Foundation details Kohaku SDK to bring shielded transactions to wallets
In brief
- Kohaku pairs an open-source SDK with a reference wallet, according to the Ethereum Foundation.
- Kohaku features include private sends, stealth addresses and isolated accounts per decentralized application.
- Kohaku supports Railgun, Privacy Pools and Tornado Cash integrations, the EF says.
- Shielded balances and automatic stealth addresses remain under development.
- A live Kohaku demo was scheduled for November 3 at Devcon, per Crypto Briefing.
What Kohaku includes
According to Crypto Briefing's report on the EF post, Kohaku's feature list includes private sends and receives, stealth addresses, and isolated accounts for each decentralized application a user interacts with. (The report doesn't link the EF post itself.) Stealth addresses let a recipient take funds at a fresh, one-off address, so payments to the same person can't easily be linked on-chain.
The EF said the kit supports integrations with Railgun, Privacy Pools and Tornado Cash. Those integrations are designed to enable shielded balances and keep user activity unlinkable. Kohaku also ships light clients and private state reads, which are meant to protect users when they're checking balances or querying the chain.
The EF says it's structured to be post-quantum secure.
It isn't finished, though. Some SDK components, including pieces tied to shielded balances and automatic stealth addresses, are still under development.
The CROPS framing
The EF framed the work through the acronym CROPS: Censorship Resistance, Capture Resistance, Open Source, Privacy, and Security. Those values were formalized in the EF Mandate on March 13, 2026, and the Foundation's October 26 communications used the framework to explain why formal verification and open-source code matter for wallet tooling. Formal verification is a mathematical method of proving that code behaves as intended.
Privacy work isn't new at the EF. Its dedicated team, Privacy Stewards of Ethereum (PSE), has run since 2018, and the Foundation established a formalized privacy roadmap in March 2026 that prioritizes private reads and private writes. That roadmap also proposes protocol-level changes such as EIP-8141 Frame Transactions, which the EF has planned for the Hegotá upgrade.
The Devcon demo
Crypto Briefing reported that a live Kohaku demonstration was scheduled for November 3, 2026, during Devcon. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and EF researcher Nicolas Consigny were expected to take part, and Ambire Wallet was set to showcase Kohaku integrations at the event.
The outlet described Devcon as upcoming.
Frequently asked questions
What is Kohaku from the Ethereum Foundation?
Kohaku is an open-source software development kit paired with a reference wallet, according to the Ethereum Foundation's post as reported by Crypto Briefing. It aims to let ordinary wallets offer shielded transactions without requiring users to be cryptography experts. Some components, including shielded balances and automatic stealth addresses, are still under development.
How do stealth addresses protect privacy on Ethereum?
Stealth addresses let a recipient receive funds at a fresh, one-off address. That means payments to the same person can't easily be linked on-chain. Stealth addresses are part of Kohaku's feature list, alongside private sends and receives and isolated accounts per decentralized application.
What does CROPS stand for in the Ethereum Foundation's mandate?
CROPS stands for Censorship Resistance, Capture Resistance, Open Source, Privacy, and Security. The values were formalized in the EF Mandate on March 13, 2026. The Foundation's October 26, 2026 communications used the framework to explain why formal verification and open-source code matter for wallet tooling.
