Famous whistleblower Edward Snowden criticized bitcoin during the Internet Engineering Task Force Meeting in Prague. He said that bitcoin as a currency has many flaws, but the technology behind it is interesting.

Snowden addressed the meeting with the help of Skype and answered the questions. Some of the questions were about the future of bitcoin.

“So, the Bitcoin thing is – I mean this is – nobody really likes to talk about Bitcoin anymore. There are informed concepts there. Obviously, Bitcoin by itself is flawed. The protocol has a lot of weaknesses and transaction sides and a lot of weaknesses that structurally make it vulnerable,” said Snowden.

At the same time Snowden confirmed that he supports the very principles behind bitcoin.

“But focusing too much on Bitcoin, I think, is a mistake. The real solution is again, how do we get to a point where you don't have to have a direct link between your identity all of the time? And how do we ensure that our standards, our protocols, our technology, the systems that surround us everyday are working to support, to protect and to armour the user's intent rather than to betray it or to monetise it or to take advantage of it in some way that might not be the end of the world, it might not be the worst thing in the universe, but it is not compliant with the user's actual intention as they engage with that?” asked Snowden.

Edward Snowden is a whistleblower who passed to the journalists the secret files of National Security Agency. These documents proved that the Federal Agents had access to many messages and files around the world. In May 2013 Snowden escaped USA and found his way to Russia where he was granted asylum.

Bitcoin community supports Edward Snowden. This April more than 300 other donors who transferred more than 25 BTC (6,500 USD) in total to the ‘Official Snowden Defense Fund’. The largest single donation was 8.5 BTC (2,200 USD). The first 200 donations came within 24 hours. This consequence of US President’s executive order has been nickhamed the ‘Obama Effect’ by Redditors.

Roman Korizky