Common S3nse 2026 opened this morning at De Hallen Studio in Amsterdam, gathering privacy engineers, security researchers, cryptographers and cypherpunks for two days of talks and building around privacy, security, decentralization and digital freedom.
Organized by CryptoCanal, the conference runs through Saturday, September 5, and anchors Cypherpunk Week, a decentralized city-wide program of independent gatherings. Its tagline sets the tone: Privacy is normal. Not a cult.
Hodl Up is an official media partner of Common S3nse 2026, following the conference remotely.
Day One
Friday ran across two stages until 22:00, with breakout rooms for workshops, and the material clustered around four fronts.
Compliant privacy. Ameen Soleimani of Privacy Pools and 0xbow, RAILGUN contributors Kieran Mesquita and Zy0n, Firo co-founder Reuben Yap and Zcash analyst Maxime Desalle put shielded transactions and selective disclosure at the center of the day.
Self-custody. Trezor Chief Commercial Officer Danny Sanders, Tangem and Satochip returned physical key management to the conversation as custody rules tighten.
Infrastructure. Nym on mixnets, Swarm on storage, ENS Labs on naming, Parity and Midnight Foundation on protocol-layer privacy, iExec on confidential computing.
Offensive security. HackenProof, Hacken, Immunefi and OtterSec gave the program a red-team spine. Privacy that has not been attacked is a claim, not a property.
Underneath it all sat the legal layer, with Parity General Counsel Eva Wong and Institute of Free Technology Chief Legal Officer Agata Ferreira sharing the program with protocol engineers. The question has moved from whether privacy tools should exist to who is liable when they do.
Why Now
Under the EU's Anti-Money Laundering Regulation, crypto-asset service providers face a ban on anonymous accounts and anonymity-enhancing coins when the rules apply from July 2027. That leaves roughly ten months before compliance architecture stops being optional. In July 2026, EU lawmakers also extended the scanning derogation critics call Chat Control, keeping end-to-end encryption on the table.
Common S3nse treats these as engineering problems as much as political ones.
The Hackathon
Ninety-nine builders registered for the online-to-IRL hackathon, which opened August 31 and closes with live presentations on September 5. Bounty tracks come from ENS Labs, Superteam Netherlands and Mobula, alongside the Otter Tank pitch format and the Best Pearls showcase. Hackers get full conference access, and Saturday puts the Top 10 and Hacker Battles on the main stage.
Formerly ETHDam, which ran from 2023 to 2025, Common S3nse widened its scope this year from Ethereum to the full privacy stack. The larger test comes after Amsterdam: whether this technology reaches products people actually use before the deadline decides it for them.
Hodl Up will continue following Common S3nse and the wider privacy and security ecosystem.