Edward Snowden, the former employee of the NSA and CIA of the United States, disclosed his involvement in the launch of the privacy-focused cryptocurrency ZCash in 2016.
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He spoke about this in a video from Zcash Media — a media group that produces educational content about the coin.
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\”At the launch of ZCash a cryptographic key is created that is used to lock the code on which the cryptocurrency runs. After that no one will be able to forge transactions,\” the video explains.
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Users must therefore trust the developer. To address the issue, the ZCash team decided to split the key among six participants of a so-called \”trusted setup\”.
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If even one of the fragment holders destroys it, the network’s security will be ensured.
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Soon after the release of the genesis block, five participants disclosed their identities. The sixth, under the alias John Dobbertin, turned out to be Snowden.
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\”When it came to this concept of several people from many places working together in the hope that at least one of them would not be compromised, would not act against the public interest, and this was necessary for the ceremony’s success, I was happy to say: ‘Of course, I will help’,\” he explained.
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The whistleblower has been in Russia since 2013, where he received political asylum.
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Two years later, the Sapling upgrade procedure was carried out again. Developers anticipate that such ceremonies will be eliminated with the Halo upgrade.
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Snowden had already noticed it before ZCash’s launch, noting its anonymity potential.
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Earlier he stated that Bitcoin’s public blockchain is its main drawback. Snowden confirmed his position in a video from Zcash Media:
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\”When we look at cryptocurrency, we see that its cryptographic properties are used to ensure the integrity of the ledger, but not to guarantee its privacy. It is widely known that Bitcoin has a public ledger. The problem is that you cannot have truly free trade if you do not have private trade. There cannot be a free society without free trade.\”
\n\n\n\nIn November 2021, the developers of ZCash published a roadmap for the project’s development through 2025.