There’s a seemingly low-key but potentially crucial event happening in mid-next month—the SEC is holding a closed-door meeting on December 15.

What’s on the agenda? How privacy protocols can survive within a compliance framework. If any conclusions come out of this, it could mean big changes ahead for established privacy coins like ZEC, as well as all those ZK solutions and FHE projects that are gearing up behind the scenes.

The meeting will focus on two main things: first, whether current crypto privacy tools can actually meet US anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance requirements without stripping away all user data; and second—though it hasn’t been explicitly stated—it’s likely to touch on how to define the boundaries between technical implementation and regulatory oversight.

In short, this meeting could end up setting the tone for the privacy sector’s direction over the next few years.