The privacy track has never had a killer application. What is the fundamental reason? Just look at those ZK public chains — writing a smart contract is as difficult as solving a math Olympiad problem, directly blocking traditional Web2 backend developers from entry.

The current situation is indeed awkward. Technologists with a background in traditional finance want to get involved, but first they have to conquer the mountain of zero-knowledge cryptography, a barrier so high that many give up before even trying. What's more painful is that no matter how advanced the technology is, if no one uses it, it’s all pointless.

This is why some teams are starting to reflect. Instead of forcing developers to learn obscure cryptographic theories, it’s better to embrace ready-made development ecosystems. The Piecrust virtual machine solution I recently saw embodies this idea — it directly supports Rust language and its vast ecosystem of libraries. What’s the result? Backend programmers at big companies can use existing development libraries to deploy privacy contracts on-chain directly, with zero additional learning cost.

This shift in thinking is highly significant. Encapsulating complex technology into ready-to-use tools truly lowers the barrier to participation. For the ecosystem to explode, the final bottleneck is often not the technology itself, but whether there are enough developers willing to get involved.