Edward Snowden Champions the use of Bitcoin and Crypto

Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower and computer security consultant commented on Bitcoin and crypto utility while delivering a keynote speech during the just concluded CoinDesk Consensus 2022 conference in Austin, Texas. While he encourages usage, he doesn’t want users to invest in them.

He said:

I use Bitcoin to use it. In 2013, Bitcoin was what I used to pay for the servers pseudonymously. Generally, I don’t encourage people to put their money in cryptocurrencies as a technology, which distances me from many people in the community.

Edward continues to maintain his position on crypto, advocating its use.

However, he notably criticized some experts and their efforts to discourage crypto lobbying.

Internet Privacy Progress

As an activist, he also chimed in on progress thus far in protecting the sacrosanct right of privacy.

While he applauded the positive steps, especially in ensuring communication encryption, he called for a further improvement in metadata protection. Metadata is descriptive data that affirms that communication took place.

He explained what metadata is by giving an analogy likening it to a van driving down the highway. In his words;

You can’t see who the passengers are, but you can still see where the van left from, where it ended up, how long it took—that type of thing. We need to make sure no one can observe that level. We need to make more transactions similar, so everyone is driving the same kind of vans and gets lost in the crowd.

After being charged in the U.S. for treason and leaking highly classified information from National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, he fled and was granted asylum in Russia.

When asked about the war between Ukraine and Russia, he wished the war had not begun in the first place. He said he was “super careful” of publicly addressing the war. This was because his views would be taken out of context to not represent the crux of his argument.

The utility of crypto has been magnified in the ongoing conflict. So far, millions of dollars have been moved using digital assets, especially Bitcoin.