A recent project by the Ethereum R&D team is the implementation of Zcash on Ethereum. This is an exciting project whereby developers are trying to create a privacy layer for Ethereum using ZK-SNARKs already used in Zcash project. With Zcash implementation on Ethereum, the aim is to create a platform that allows applications such as voting where privacy is of paramount importance.
It will also allow the creation of anonymous tokens on Ethereum that can be used in a number of applications.