Zcash reveals Edward Snowden’s key role in 2016 ceremony

Zcash, one of the market’s leading privacy coins, has been under the cosh lately. Not only has its price action been underwhelming, but its future in light of new proposed EU regulations may be at risk too. This, in fact, was a concern shared recently by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong when he tweeted,

“On 31 March, the EU Parliament will vote on its proposal for a new crypto surveillance regime. The proposal is anti-innovation, anti-privacy, and anti-law enforcement.”

The popular altcoin is in the news again today after Zcash Media revealed that Snowden was one of the six people instrumental in the creation of it. Back in 2016, Zcash held a ceremony to create its first units of currency. Via video chat, the infamous NSA whistleblower revealed that,

“My name is Edward Snowden. I participated in the Zcash original ceremony under the pseudonym John Dobbertin.”

While claiming that he was never ‘intimately’ involved with the project and instead, left the algorithms to ‘people who actually knew about it,’ Snowden said,

“I’m really happy to see the Zcash project has managed to keep moving beyond, moving us closer and closer to that ideal of a free currency which is also a private currency.”

Snowden’s involvement being finally revealed is big news, but it is also in line with what we know about the whistleblower’s involvement with cryptos. In the past, Snowden has been known to use cryptos, with the former NSA contractor having claimed that Bitcoin helped create an “even playing field.” Cryptos and blockchain, according to him, are being viewed as threats by governments and financial institutions.

Sometimes I think back to this and wonder how many people bought #Bitcoin then.

It's up ~10x since, despite a coordinated global campaign by governments to undermine public understanding of—and support for—cryptocurrency.

China even banned it, but it just made Bitcoin stronger. https://t.co/pbnOFGfaVf

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 3, 2021

Worth pointing out, however, that Snowden has been critical of Bitcoin in the past. The whistleblower believes that a good medium of exchange should be anonymous and Bitcoin lacks privacy. Snowden also found time to comment on Bitcoin during the aforementioned video chat, claiming,

“The problem with Bitcoin is you can’t truly have free trade unless you have private trader.”