Tag: Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden says gamers could be vulnerable to exploitation using NFTs

by Cointelegraph

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden said he was concerned with how some privileged individuals or firms in the digital space might be able to use nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in the gaming industry.

Speaking with Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood at the BlockDown DeData online conference on Friday, Snowden said though he had seen some use cases for nonfungible tokens to raise funds for causes, he is concerned with the technology “creeping into gaming.” The whistleblower described certain aspects of the metaverse as “horrible, and heinous, and tragic” for aiming at capitalizing on users’ virtual escapes.

“We have people that are trying to [inject] an artificial sense of scarcity into a post-scarcity domain,” said Snowden. “I think the community should very much be trying to bend the arc of development away from injecting artificial, unnecessary scarcity entirely for the benefit of some investor class.”

Edward Snowden speaking at BlockDown DeData

Wood seemed to disagree with Snowden’s claims regarding NFTs in gaming, equating virtual artifacts within games to artists selling NFTs of their own music. However, Snowden countered that gamers were “not paying for a guaranteed product” but rather purchasing the “chance at something, without the promise of something,” leaving the space open to exploitation.

“I don’t have any issue with game developers restricting access to their product in the same way that they already have for decades before,” said Wood. “I see NFTs as a more agile way of restricting access to their product.”

Snowden’s and Wood’s comments come as gaming firms seem to be casting a wider net for adoption of digital assets and NFTs. Andrew Wilson, CEO of major video game company Electronic Arts, said in November that NFTs and play-to-earn games are the future of the industry. There seems to be interest from users as well — on Wednesday, the NFT game Guild of Guardians announced it had sold more than $5 million of its native tokens in advance of its Q1 2022 launch.

Related: Bitcoin got stronger despite government crackdowns, says Edward Snowden

Speaking from Russia where he has been in exile since 2013, Snowden has continued to give interviews and express his opinions on Bitcoin (BTC) and the crypto space. The NSA whistleblower

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Edward Snowden: Bitcoin Up 10x Despite Coordinated Global Campaign By Governments

by Bitcoin Magazine

On Sunday evening famous whistleblower Edward Snowden commented on Bitcoin’s resilient price rise over the last year and a half despite global campaigns by governments to undermine the network.

On Sunday evening famous whistleblower Edward Snowden commented on Bitcoin’s resilient price rise over the last year and a half despite global campaigns by governments to undermine the network.

“Sometimes I think back to this and wonder how many people bought Bitcoin then,” Snowden wrote on Sunday, quoting his March 2020 tweet. At that time the Bitcoin price was hovering between $5-6K.

“This is the first time in a while I’ve felt like buying bitcoin. That drop was too much panic and too little reason,” Snowden wrote in March of 2020.

While Snowden has issued concerns over Bitcoin’s pseudonymity in the past, it is remarkable that he continues to track its price in US Dollars and write about it for an audience of nearly 5 million Twitter users.

“It’s up ~10x since, despite a coordinated global campaign by governments to undermine public understanding of—and support for—cryptocurrency,” Snowden tweeted Sunday.

He continued, “China even banned it, but it just made Bitcoin stronger.” Snowden here refers to the global redistribution of Bitcoin hash power that followed China’s mining ban and subsequent user ban. Notably all such government bans on Bitcoin do little to stop the network, but rather decentralize it further.

Snowden’s recent Bitcoin tweets have followed events in El Salvador. Yesterday just before he tweeted, the president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele noted that the country had onboarded over 3 million Bitcoin users in just 26 days.

Notably, on 7 September Snowden tweeted: “Today Bitcoin was formally recognized as legal tender in its first country.”

“Beyond the headlines, there is now pressure on competing nations to acquire Bitcoin—even if only as a reserve asset—as its design massively incentivizes early adoption.”

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Snowden’s recent tweets have shown his interest in the geopolitical and game theoretical implications of Bitcoin adoption. After El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, the Snowden highlighted that Bitcoin favors early adopters, thereby putting pressure on other nations, which will be penalized for being laggards.

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Bitcoin got stronger despite government crackdowns, says Edward Snowden

by Cointelegraph

Edward Snowden has touted the antifragility of Bitcoin (BTC) despite increasing regulatory scrutiny on cryptocurrencies around the world.

Tweeting on Sunday, the former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent stated that Bitcoin has gotten stronger on the back of government bans and anti-crypto policies.

Snowden’s tweet referenced remarks made back on March 13, 2020, amid the throes of the Black Thursday decline that saw crypto and equity markets tank amid fears of the coronavirus pandemic.

As reported by Cointelegraph at the time, Snowden was unfazed by Bitcoin’s 50% drop stating that it was the first time he “felt like buying Bitcoin.”

“It’s up ~10x since, despite a coordinated global campaign by governments to undermine public understanding of—and support for—cryptocurrency,” Snowden tweeted on Sunday.

During the Black Thursday crash of March 2020, Bitcoin slipped to $3,800 but has since gone on to set a new all-time high of about $64,800.

Trading above $47,000 as of press time, the BTC spot price has increased more than 10 times since Snowden’s tweet back in March 2020.

Indeed, 2021 has been a year of sweeping Bitcoin and crypto crackdowns, especially in China with authorities in Beijing upping the ante on negative cryptocurrency policies.

Several Bitcoin miners have exited China, moving their hardware to locations overseas. The shutdown of crypto mining activity in China even temporarily caused a massive decline in the Bitcoin hash rate.

Related: Actions speak: China’s crypto ban may reveal digital yuan CBDC goals

Anti-Bitcoin sentiments also seem rife in Washington with some members of Congress espousing negative rhetoric about cryptocurrencies while also calling for stricter laws.

Regulators like Gary Gensler, chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, have also pushed for more stringent cryptocurrency laws that critics say could derail digital innovation in America.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin adoption continues to grow with nation-states even getting into the mix. El Salvador recently made history as the first country to accept BTC as legal tender in a move that could have significant implications across Central and South America.

Snowden has even previously commented on El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law stating that other nations could become incentivized to accept BTC as a reserve asset.