![Kiyosaki’s Crash Survival Rules, Snowden Warns Bitcoin Devs, and More — Week in Review Kiyosaki’s Crash Survival Rules, Snowden Warns Bitcoin Devs, and More — Week in Review](https://static.news.bitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/week_in_review_kiyosaki_survival-768x432.jpg)
His commentary touched on the zkSnacks shutdown, free speech, and the proper treatment of farm animals.
Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the United States National Security Agency accused of espionage after leaking classified information, had a busy day on the X social media app on May 2 when he seemed to have a modicum of vitriol for everyone from the current governor of South Dakota to the world’s richest person.
Snowden, an outspoken whistleblower who lived in asylum in Russia until 2022, when he was granted full citizenship in the country, has risen to media prominence in the wake of his whistleblower incident. Currently, he holds celebrity status, especially among some technology-based communities and is well known for speaking out on topics he considers related to freedom and privacy.
Another celebrity technologist who’s known for speaking out on issues related to freedom, Elon Musk, was among those who drew the ire of Snowden during his May 2nd tirade. After Musk posted a poll asking whether someone who “tears down the American flag and puts up another flag in its place” should be deported to the country whose flag they raised, Snowden chastised the billionaire with a lesson on freedom of expression.
Famed whistleblower Edward Snowden thinks the crypto community should be wary of a spot-based Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF). While speaking at the Bitcoin Amsterdam 2023 event last week, the former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee warned about the potential dangers of letting traditional finance gain power over […]
The post Whistleblower Edward Snowden Issues Warning, Says Spot Bitcoin ETF a Form of Subjugation by TradFi appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Prominent Bitcoiners and contemporary adopters highlight the need to focus on the fundamental value proposition of Bitcoin to continue its push to mainstream acceptance.
“We’re contorting ourselves to pass through the keyhole of tyranny.” Edward Snowden’s words ring out in the packed Genesis Stage hall at Bitcoin Amsterdam, stressing the preeminent cryptocurrency’s ever-increasing importance in a world beset by creeping government surveillance, devaluing fiat currencies and restrictive policies.
The renowned whistleblower’s address summed up a recurring theme during the conference hosted in Amsterdam, driving home the role of decentralized protocols like Bitcoin and Nostr in handing individuals some semblance of control over their wealth and privacy.
Cointelegraph spoke to prominent Bitcoin developers, investors, builders and supporters attending the two day conference at the picturesque Westerpark. In the midst of the ongoing cryptocurrency bear market that has tested the wider industry, the event managed to attract a couple of thousand event-goers looking for the latest news and insights from the BTC industry.
While these prominent figures highlighted the value proposition of Bitcoin as a store of value against diminishing purchasing power of fiat currencies, Snowden was critical of the continual focus on the value of BTC over its importance as decentralized tool:
"We are all part of a bigger game and Bitcoin is one of the strongest levers in that. The systems that we are influencing, that we are exerting leverage on - payments and finance - will shape what the world of tomorrow looks like."
Snowden’s address attracted arguably the biggest gathering of visitors during the conference, as he revisited the role that Bitcoin played in his own journey rebelling against the hegemony of the U.S. government and its wanton surveillance of its citizens.
In 2013, Snowden used Bitcoin to pay for the servers that hosted classified information that was sent to journalists that would reveal the overreach of the National Security Agency. As Snowden elaborated, Bitcoin’s increasing prominence has led to increasing opposition from governments, lawmakers and legacy financial institutions.
“We don’t want to focus on things like ETFs (exchange-traded funds), we need to focus on the fundamentals.”
Snowden added that the potential influence of Bitcoin ETFs on the value of the cryptocurrency represents "subordination, a kind of subjugation, a process of taming" that is being played out by institutions that regulate traditional financial spheres.
Snowden also shared his belief that Bitcoin has ‘a privacy problem’, highlighting the emergence of obfuscation tools like coinjoin and mixers as important, but equally indicative of the pressure facing the decentralized protocol.
“Acting in secret is not freedom. The necessity of coinjoins and so on - that is because you are un-free. Proof of funds is proof of unfreedom.”
Snowden said that society needs to stop asking for permission by continuing to innovate with the creation of decentralized tools that do not heed to the powers that be, referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission's actions against the wider cryptocurrency space in 2023 as a prime example of the control that currently exists:
"All of the people tracking price and looking at headlines involving the SEC. Gary Gensler is not Daddy Bitcoin. I don't really care what he thinks and I don't think you should either."
The whistleblower also tipped his hat to the creation of Nostr, which he described as powerful in conceptualizing the integration of free speech and free trade. The creators of Nostr would later unpack the genesis of the platform at the conference, which also drew a significant crowd.
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The Damus app is powered by Nostr which uses decentralized relays to distribute end-to-end encrypted messages.
Damus, a so-called “Twitter killer” built on a decentralized network has been approved on the Apple App Store.
The Damus team confirmed the approval to its 11,500 Twitter followers on Jan. 31, following what it claims was at least three rejections from the Big Tech player.
Shortly after, Twitter co-founder and Nostr contributor Jack Dorsey shared the news with his 6.5 million followers, with the entrepreneur labeling it as a “milestone” moment for open source protocols:
a milestone for open protocols...#nostr is now officially on the Apple App Store with @damusapp:https://t.co/GQmvPE5nfX
— jack (@jack) January 31, 2023
The app dubs itself the “social network you control” and is a messaging service built on Nostr — a decentralized network enabling encrypted, end-to-end private messaging, among other things.
It plans to become a social media platform with uncensored content. It also has built-in payments through the Bitcoin (BTC) layer-2 Lightning network according to a Jan. 27 post from Protos.
No servers run the network. Instead, Nostr utilizes decentralized relays to distribute messages.
Nostr developers are also focused on using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network to prevent Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) spam attacks on the Damus app.
There have been 44 different software developers who have contributed to the code for the Damus web app, according to the team’s GitHub page.
Neat way to fetch bitcoin addresses: #nostr encrypted dms. pic.twitter.com/lMlnIhf3fg
— William Casarin ⚡️ (@jb55) January 29, 2023
Getting Damus on the Apple App Store didn’t come without issues though.
The Damus Twitter page posted that it had failed in at least three attempts before finally being approved:
We replied again clarifying where and how all these features are implemented. That's all we can do at this time....
— Damus⚡️ (@damusapp) January 31, 2023
One of Nostr’s core developers, William Casarin also shared some frustration on his personal Twitter account, stating that it would be a “shame” if Apple users couldn’t use Nostr natively.
Related: An inside look at the moral and technical considerations of crypto social media
While the exact partnership between Dorsey and Nostr isn’t known, the billionaire entrepreneur sent over 14 BTC — worth about $250,000 at the time — in mid-December to help the Nostr developer team.
While the news appeared to have increased awareness of the application amongst the Bitcoin community, other high-profile figures have tested out the Damus app too.
Amongst those include Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden and pro-crypto U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis.
One of the cool things about Nostr ("Notes and other stuff transmitted by relays", a new decentralized protocol that replaces things like Twitter and Instagram)—beyond censorship resistance—is that you aren't limited to 280 characters.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) January 23, 2023
Find me there. pic.twitter.com/B7JUHeeSdP
At the time of writing, the Damus web app has run into problems. A warning message on the site homepage reads:
“Damus Web is down because there is someone trying to exploit browser loopholes to steal private keys. I would not recommend using a web client at this time. Damus iOS is not affected.”