defi.com CEO Neil May Challenges Industry: “Most DeFi Projects Are Building Privacy for Anonymity, Not Privacy for People”
Publish Date: 2026-05-22 09:00:00
Source Domain: pinionnewswire.com
London, England (PinionNewswire) — As the DeFi sector rushes to integrate zero-knowledge proofs and privacy pools, defi.com CEO Neil May has issued a sharp rebuke to the industry: the vast majority of privacy solutions are solving the wrong problem.
“Privacy without identity is just hiding,” said May. “The industry has become obsessed with making transactions invisible, but it has completely ignored the user’s need for a portable, trustworthy identity. You can’t build a financial system where people are anonymous ghosts; you can’t lend to them, you can’t build relationships with them, and they can’t prove they’re not criminals without dumping their entire transaction history.”
May’s comments challenge a wave of privacy-focused protocols that have raised significant capital and attention. While acknowledging the technical achievements of projects like Tornado Cash successors and ZK-based L2s, May argues that privacy in a vacuum is incomplete; and often counterproductive.
“Anonymity pools are great for whistleblowers and political dissidents. But for everyday users and institutions, they create more problems than they solve,” May said. “How do you know you’re not receiving funds from a sanctioned wallet? How do you build a credit history if every transaction is erased? The industry has confused privacy with anonymity. Real privacy means you control what you reveal; not that you reveal nothing to everyone.”
A Missing Layer: Portable Identity
defi.com, which has held the category-defining domain since 2018, is taking a different approach. The company is building what it calls “identity-first finance”; a system where users have a portable, human-readable DeFi ID that sits atop privacy infrastructure, enabling selective disclosure rather than blanket secrecy.
“When you have a DeFi ID, you’re not anonymous. But you’re also not exposed,” said Sam Newman, Chief Product Officer at defi.com, who joined the company after…
