Gamers May be Exposed Exploitation via NFTs - Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden, whistleblower and former employee of the NSA, expressed concern about how online gamers run a risk of being exposed to exploitation via NFTs in the gaming industry.

Edward Snowden Says that Gamers May be Exposed to Exploitation Through NFTs

Snowden claimed he had seen potential use cases for nonfungible tokens to collect donations for causes when speaking with Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood at Friday's BlockDown DeData online conference. Still, he is concerned about the technology "creeping into games." For attempting to profit from users' virtual escapes, the whistleblower branded certain features of the metaverse as "horrible, vile, and tragic."

"We have people that are trying to [inject] an artificial sense of scarcity into a post-scarcity domain," said Snowden. "I think the community should very much be trying to bend the arc of development away from injecting artificial, unnecessary scarcity entirely for the benefit of some investor class."

Wood seems to disagree with Snowden's allegations about NFTs in gaming, comparing virtual games to musicians selling NFTs of their songs. On the other hand, Snowden said that gamers were "not paying for a guaranteed product," but rather for a "chance at something, without the promise of something," leaving the area open to abuse.

"I don't have any issue with game developers restricting access to their product in the same way that they already have for decades before," said Wood. "I see NFTs as a more agile way of restricting access to their product."

Gaming Firms Casting a Wider Net for Adoption of Digital Assets

The statements of Snowden and Wood come at a time when gaming companies appear to be casting a giant net for the adoption of digital assets and NFTs. NFTs and play-to-earn games, according to Andrew Wilson, CEO of primary video game developer Electronic Arts, represent the industry's future. Users appear to be interested as well; the NFT game Guild of Guardians said on Wednesday that it had sold more than $5 million in native tokens ahead of its Q1 2022 debut. Snowden has continued to give interviews and share his ideas on Bitcoin (BTC) and the crypto world from Russia, where he has been in exile since 2013. Before departing the United States, the NSA whistleblower used Bitcoin to pay for the servers he used to leak thousands of documents to journalists.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading crypto assets comes with a risk of financial loss.

edward snowden Gavin Wood NFTs Gaming Firms

Gamers May be Exposed Exploitation via NFTs - Edward Snowden

Usha Yadav

Usha is a diehard crypto enthusiast and has been actively writing on different facets of the blockchain and crypto world. She has authored many research articles on cryptocurrency and aims to provide informational and quality content to readers. She firmly believes that crypto has a great potential to redefine the world of finance and blockchain.