Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to former National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden, who has been a refugee in Russia since 2013. This American whistleblower is wanted by the U.S. justice for having revealed classified documents. During his years of political asylum in Russia, Edward Snowden has promoted cryptocurrency to protect privacy and bypass the control of state agencies.
Edward Snowden now American-Russian
The Russian government has issued a decree granting Russian citizenship to dozens of people including Edward Snowden. This former employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) had fled the United States in 2013 after having transmitted to the press tens of thousands of documents from the NSA proving the extent of electronic surveillance carried out by Washington.
Since then, Snowden has been living in exile in Russia. Despite threats from Washington, the Russian authorities have always refused to extradite him to the United States where he is being prosecuted for espionage. With the granting of Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden, the prospect of extradition is even more remote.
Edward Snowden had applied for Russian citizenship in 2020 in order not to be separated from his family. The whistleblower was pleased on Twitter about the happy outcome of his request.
Edward Snowden is an avid supporter of cryptocurrencies. At a 2019 Bitcoin Conference, Snowden shared that he had, as early as 2013, used Bitcoin to pay for an encrypted service to communicate with journalists.
A strong proponent of crypto and detractor of CBDCs
Although he is an advocate of Bitcoin, Snowden does not hesitate to criticize its CBDC-like privacy issues. In an interview, the whistleblower argued that bitcoin’s transparency, including to governments and other malicious entities, does not work in its favor.
bitcoin is not an anonymous ledger… there are people who analyze the chains and there are people who do some pretty sneaky things with it… it’s really private to the public, but it’s public to the important people, shall we say.
Edward Snowden in an interview
This is probably why Edward Snowden helped create Zcash. Indeed, the Zcash blockchain only shows the proof of the transaction without revealing other details such as the addresses of the sender and receiver.
Edward Snowden also criticizes central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as a public danger.
A CBDC is something closer to a perversion of cryptocurrency or at least its founding principles. It is a crypto-fascist currency … expressly designed to deny its users ownership of their money and install the state at the center of mediating any transaction.
Edward Snowden in a tribune
While some consider Edward Snowden a traitor, many consider him a hero. According to Amnesty International, Snowden has changed the world. Cryptocurrencies are a big part of his fight for freedom. Edward Snowden is not the only one who understands how cryptos can work towards a more just, free and dignified world. The Human Rights Foundation also believes in this and every six months funds Bitcoin development projects around the world.
I dream of a world where every citizen has total control over themselves, including their finances. I believe that Bitcoin is one of the tools that will achieve this revolution. Since 2019, I am learning about this cryptocurrency and spreading the word around.
