Edward Snowden: the problem with bitcoin is the lack of anonymity

Speaking at the Consensus 2022 conference, the former NSA and CIA employee said that he does not believe that bitcoin will be able to take an absolute leading position in the cryptocurrency market in the near future.

Snowden, who made international headlines after he released secret National Security Agency documents in 2013 detailing the surveillance practices of US citizens, called bitcoin’s public nature a «major drawback» and said that the main reason why BTC will fail is that it is not anonymous.

«BTC will fail as a money transfer system because it will not be able to replace cash — cash is basically designed for anonymity,» Snowden said. At the same time, he is confident that cryptocurrencies have a bright future, but the market needs to solve a number of difficulties that are already known to everyone. And anonymity is one of these factors.

Earlier it became known that Snowden was one of the founders of the anonymous cryptocurrency Zcash.