NSA Whistle-Blower Snowden Comes Out As Dobbertin Of Zcash, Says Bitcoin Is An Open Disaster

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden said Bitcoin is "an open disaster" as he dropped the pseudonym of John Dobbertin, known as one of the key persons behind altcoin ZCash.

The privacy advocate, who sought refuge in Russia to avoid arrest in the United States following the leak of NSA documents in 2013, had promoted ZCash earlier, but it was not known that he was among the six individuals who possessed parts of a private key that was required to be destroyed for the success of the $2.1 billion blockchain.

Five of the six participants revealed their identities after the ceremony in 2016. They included CoinCenter researcher Peter Van Valkenburgh and bitcoin core developer Peter Todd. But the sixth person, the pseudonymous John Dobbertin, remained unknown until Wednesday when Forbes obtained a video in which Snowden confirmed his role.

"Privacy for bitcoin is still an open disaster. Everyone is aware of it,” Snowden said. "I’ve tweeted exchanges with the core developers, they know it. And there are improvement proposals out there. But it’s moving slowly," he said.

Snowden is convinced that the non-action on the part of core developers is due to their "fear of moving forward to fix" the issue. He believes it is what makes "everybody a slow boat because this is the core problem with bitcoin today."

Snowden has been a vocal advocate for privacy coins and has continuously denied having paid for supporting Zcash. In September 2017, he said, "Zcash's privacy tech makes it the most interesting Bitcoin alternative," and while he noted that Bitcoin is great, he underlined that "if it's not private, it's not safe."

Zcash, unknown to many, is a decentralized cryptocurrency centered on anonymity and privacy. It utilizes zero-knowledge proof technology that enables nodes to verify transactions without divulging sensitive information about those transactions.

While Bitcoin was designed to be totally transparent and trackable it is not anonymous but pseudonymous. Zcash, on the other hand, is coded to conceal all details about a transaction, which includes the amount involved and public keys. In other words, as Zcash changes hands, prying eyes will not be able to follow its movements.

Zcash was trading down 0.28% at $148.55 with a 24-hour volume trading down 21.12% at $209,810,264, based on data from CoinMarketCap as of 2:59 a.m. ET on Thursday.