The first ten years of cryptocurrency birth were dominated by a single idea: transparency equals justice. Public blockchains like Ethereum created a completely transparent world—every transaction, every holding, every contract call is nakedly displayed on the chain. It sounds ideal, but what about in reality?

When real money—the trillions of dollars in institutional funds—enters the scene, problems arise. For players like Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, or sovereign wealth funds, complete transparency is not justice at all, but a disaster.

Think about the underlying logic of financial games: information advantage is the source of excess returns. If a hedge fund’s positions are visible in real-time and accessible across the network, what happens? Competitors immediately target short positions, high-frequency trading bots take the opportunity to "sandwich attack," and the hard-earned Alpha opportunities instantly vanish. This leads to a classic prisoner’s dilemma—no one dares to expose their true positions.

Another extreme is the traditional banking system—completely black box. It indeed protects privacy, but at what cost? The risks are opaque, and once they explode, it results in systemic crises. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 is a vivid lesson.

Is there a third way? That’s the significance of the current discussion around the "gray box" approach. It’s not full disclosure nor a secretive black box, but finding a balance: protecting sensitive information while providing enough verifiability. Cryptographic tools like zero-knowledge proofs are precisely designed for this purpose—they allow you to prove possession of certain assets or completion of a transaction without revealing all the details.

This shift means that blockchain can truly accommodate institutional-level financial activities while retaining the core advantages of cryptocurrency: establishing consensus through cryptography rather than trust.