The crisis surrounding the issue of privacy in the Bitcoin network in light of the recent actions of the US government has opened debates in the community. In X, characters like Edward Snowden claim to have been warning for several years about the need to preserve privacy in the Bitcoin protocol. Who was a CIA and NSA agent, and currently a fugitive from American justice, maintains that “the clock is ticking.”
“I have been warning Bitcoin developers for ten years that it is necessary to guarantee privacy at the protocol level. This is the final warning. “The clock is ticking.” Edward Snowden, former CIA agent.
Snowden's “final warning” received criticism from several Bitcoin developers and industry leaders. They came forward to question his position. This is the case of Jameson Lopp, who ironically responded: “It could take another 10 years.” Luke Dashjr, also a Bitcoin developer, was more blunt in his response. He said he had not heard any warnings from Snowden previously and asked him to offer solutions. “What do you have in mind specifically? I don’t know of any viable solution for protocol-level privacy yet (but I’m not a cryptographer),” she noted. Other references of the ecosystem, such as the director of Plan B Network, Giacomo Zucco, they questioned that there are bitcoiners like Snowden repeating “absolutely wrong” advice and warnings. “It is possible that one day changes to the consensus rules could be achieved to improve privacy in Bitcoin. And it would be good to implement them. But it's important to get there using sound logic,” Zucco said. In a similar line of opinion, Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet asserted that he sees “no easy upgrade path to improve Bitcoin privacy.” “While we could draw a new chain from the current state of Bitcoin, it wouldn't be Bitcoin. In my humble opinion, the likelihood of Bitcoin going private in the future is very slim”, he commented. Chris Blec, cryptocurrency market researcher and analyst, joined the questioning about Snowden. He asserts that even if developers had an effective idea to add more privacy to Bitcoin, “powerful actors, such as centralized exchanges, traditional finance, whales like Michael Saylor, etc., would never allow privacy due to conflicts with the law».
Persecution of privacy in the United States
Snowden's comments come in a context in which US authorities They maintain a persecution against the platforms of bitcoin that protect people's privacy. This is the case of Samourai Wallet, whose founders were arrested by the North American government. Following the action against Samourai Wallet, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued an alert for the use of bitcoin platforms without the know-your-customer (KYC) protocol. As indicated, they will take money from customers If any of these companies intervene and do not provide a refund guarantee. Such a warning from the FBI, however, is presented as an argument in favor of bitcoin self-custody, according to what was explained by different representatives of the ecosystem. For them, the alert from that police office is an incentive to opt for sovereign custody of BTC and thus skip any possible action by the US government. In any case, the situation with Bitcoin privacy has motivated different wallets to take measures in order to avoid being part of the American persecution. For example, the disincorporation of CoinJoin services, which obfuscate transactions to prevent them from being traced. As reported by BitcoinDynamic, Wasabi Wallet indicated that its CoinJoin service would be disabled from June 1. The same will happen in Trezor. For its part, Samourai Wallet eliminated the Whirlpool protocol in its most recent version, focused on transaction obfuscation.