Most people think of blockchain privacy as a way to keep balances secret. A September 10, 2026 post from the Midnight team, written by CTO Sebastien Guillemot, makes a stronger case: privacy is a security feature that helps protect you from scammers.
Phishing Has Gotten Smarter
Phishing is when a scammer pretends to be someone trustworthy to trick you into handing over money or access. Early phishing was like casting a wide net, with fake prince or lottery emails sent to everyone. The post calls this "trawling."
Today, attackers often use public blockchain data to pick their targets carefully.
How Public Ledgers Help Scammers
Picking targets: Automated scripts watch for big transfers and wallets with large balances.
Building a profile: Attackers can estimate what you hold, which apps you use, and when you are usually active.
Timing the trap: If you regularly withdraw from an exchange, a scammer can send a fake "transaction error" or "security alert" email right when you would expect one, linking to a malicious website.
What Is Ice Phishing?
The post also explains ice phishing, where an attacker tricks you into signing a transaction they prepared in advance. Because they can see your coins on chain, including your UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs, basically the individual "coins" sitting in your wallet), they can build a request that looks normal. Most people cannot read the raw details of a signature request, so one click can hand over their holdings.
How Midnight Helps
Shielded assets on Midnight keep balance and behavior data off the public ledger. Without that data, attackers cannot easily choose targets or time their scams. Phishing falls back to the old, imprecise trawling approach. As the post puts it, "Attackers cannot weaponize what they cannot find."
The team says a follow up will explain the cryptography behind shielded assets, including viewing keys, zero knowledge proofs and nullifiers. In the meantime, the takeaway is simple: on Midnight, privacy and safety go hand in hand.