Edward Snowden played key role to build ZCash Coin under pseudonym
The famed NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has been revealed as one of the six pseudonymous participants involved in privacy coin ZCash's trusted setup in 2016.
NSA whistleblower and privacy advocate Edward Snowden has revealed himself to be one of six pseudonymous participants in the trusted setup of privacy coin ZCash (ZEC) in 2016. The news was revealed in a video set released by ZCash media, the cryptocurrency's education arm.
“I saw it being worked on by a number of trusted academic cryptographers and I thought it was a very interesting project,” Snowden said. He used the name "John Dobbertin" to stay anonymous throughout the process.
Snowden had recently agreed to reveal his participation in a letter to ZCash founder Zooko Wilcox, if it would be made clear that he did not benefit from the process. “As long as it is clear that I was never paid and had no stake, it was just a public interest thing, I think you can tell people,” wrote Snowden.
Snowden famously blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance activities under former president Barack Obama, and has been living in exile in Russia since 2013.
Edited by Megha Reddy
