Edward Snowden reveals his participation in creation of Zcash: Forbes
Edward Snowden, an American former computer intelligence consultant turned whistle-blower, has confirmed that he was the sixth person who participated in the creation of Zcash, a decentralized cryptocurrency focused on privacy and anonymity, in 2016. As per a report from Forbes, Snowden was a part of the initiation ceremony for the creation of the token.
Edward Snowden and the birth of Zcash
In 2016, the world of cryptocurrencies was still young, and Bitcoin was dominating the crypto space. However, in 2016, Zcash was presented to the world, which allowed people to hide everything related to their transactions, including the amount transferred and the public keys as well. Developers of this privacy-focused crypto at the Denver-based Zerocoin Electric Coin Company used zero-knowledge proof for the construction of this network.To start the process of creation of Zcash, six individuals performed a number of different tasks "possessing a sliver of the private creation key, which if ever united would allow the printing of infinite untraceable cryptocurrency." The finale of the creation ceremony involved the destruction of one or more keys.
"When we look at cryptocurrency, we generally see the cryptographic properties of it being used to make sure it's a fair ledger, but not that it's been used to ensure that it's a private ledger. Bitcoin quite famously is an open ledger. The problem with that is you can't have truly free trade unless you have private trade. And you can't have a free society without free trade," told Snowden in the recording for a documentary by Zcash Media about the history of the coin.
"No issue more important than fixing the weaknesses of the open ledger"
In a different video from the Nym conference provided to Forbes, Snowden stated that "privacy for bitcoin is still an open disaster," noting the fact that Zcash is different from Bitcoin since it doesn't have the weaknesses associated with an open ledger.However, contrary to the statement above, Snowden supported Bitcoin during the Chinese crackdown on cryptocurrencies and has even tweeted about buying BTC in 2020.
Snowden's reveal has come at a perfect time as Zooko Wilcox, co-founder and CEO of the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company is ready to release a software update for Zcash, called Halo which will give users the access to the cryptocurrency without relying on a trusted setup.
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