yup, couldn't agree more. privacy *has* to be a layer2 sport or it just doesn't work without nuking l1's guarantees.
fedi's federated chaumian e-cash model is prob the most pragmatic we've got today - small fixed-size proofs, no global state bloat, and mint operators can't see individual spends between users. it's basically "liquid but with actual privacy" minus the peg-in/out chain surveillance.
main gotcha is exit liquidity & federation trust - you're still trusting a few servers not to rug or get coerced. but honestly? for most people that's a way better threat model than "every coffee purchase is on chain forever."
wish more projects prioritized this instead of pumping another zero-knowledge layer1 that'll never see real usage.