Cybersecurity figurehead and government surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden has revealed that he played a crucial role in the creation of the privacy token Zcash (ZEC).
A video from Zcash Media showed an interview with Snowden, in which he outlined his involvement as one of the six people who owned part of the Zcash Multisignature Private Key to launch the project on October 23, 2016. In the video, Snowden explained:
“My name is Edward Snowden. I attended the original Zcash ceremony under the alias John Dobbertin.”
Edward Snowden is the whistleblower who exposed US government surveillance tactics and went into hiding in 2013.
Zcash is a decentralized blockchain that uses zero-knowledge proofs in its transactions. Unlike the relatively transparent Bitcoin (BTC), ZEC transactions cannot be tracked and the amounts transferred cannot be determined.
SURPRISE! Our 2nd video came early.
Watch it now to learn more about it #Zcash‘s ceremony, how it worked, why @ebvoll‘s Halo breakthrough makes it obsolete, and an exclusive interview with #JohnDobbertin himself, Edward @Snowden.
️ https://t.co/Pyk0pwkIto
️ https://t.co/RxgJgbtBcR pic.twitter.com/2efMGnmRx1— Zcash Media ️ (@zcashmedia) April 27, 2022
At the Zcash ceremony, Snowden and five other people each combined their share of the Zcash private key to launch the project. None of the participants knew who the others were or what part of the key they held, in order to maintain their anonymity, one of the project’s tenets.
Each person’s key part had to be destroyed to prevent future coins or transactions from being counterfeited.
Interviewed by Zcash Media, Snowden shared his enthusiasm for the project and his zeal for privacy. He said: “The problem with [Bitcoin] is that you cannot have truly free trade unless you have private trade.
“I’m just really happy to see that the Zcash project […] brings us ever closer to the ideal of a free currency that is also a private currency.”
Another attendee at the ceremony, Bitcoin developer Peter Todd, recalled the “legendary effort Zcash ceremony attendees took to avoid being hacked.
So it turns out that Snowden was one of the six participants in the trusted Zcash setup that I also participated in. Which I heavily criticized for being arrested followed by Zcash people falsely accusing me of sexual assault in retaliation.
Life is so strange and shitty. https://t.co/bFuvg0izKs
— Peter Todd (@peterktodd) April 27, 2022
Todd said he bought a new computer and installed all the necessary programs for the ceremony, then put the computer in a Faraday cage to prevent unwanted intrusion. A Faraday cage is a box lined with aluminum foil that reflects WiFi signals.
Related: The loss of privacy: why we must fight for a decentralized future
He then drove to a remote area, where he brought a blowtorch to his device to destroy his piece of Zcash’s private key.
News of Snowden’s post didn’t have a major impact on the price as ZEC is currently up 1.7% over the past 24 hours and trading at $148 according to Cointelegraph data.