Edward Snowden Worried About Using Digital Tokens In The Gaming Industry, Here's Why!

Edward Snowden is concerned about the use of NFT tokens in the gaming industry. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA – US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden expressed concern about how some privileged individuals or companies in the digital space might be able to use non-exchangeable tokens, or NFTs, in the gaming industry.

Speaking with Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood at the BlockDown DeData online conference on Friday, December 3, Snowden stated that while he had seen several cases of using non-exchangeable tokens to raise funds for specific purposes, he was concerned about the technology “creeping into in the game."

Whistleblower describes certain aspects of the metaverse as "terrible, vile, and tragic" because it aims to take advantage of the users' virtual escape.

“We have people trying to [inject] an artificial sense of scarcity into the post-scarcity domain,” Snowden was quoted as saying by Cointelegraph. "I think society should really try to bend the arc of development rather than injecting completely unnecessary artificial scarcity in the interests of some class of investors."

Wood seems to disagree with Snowden's claims about in-game NFT, which equates virtual artifacts in games with artists selling NFTs of their own music. However, Snowden countered that gamers "are not paying for a guaranteed product" but rather buying "a chance at something, without a promise of something," which leaves room open for exploitation.

"I don't have a problem with game developers restricting access to their products in the same way they have done for decades before," said Wood. “I see NFT as a more agile way to limit access to their products.”

Snowden and Wood's comments come as game companies appear to be providing a wider net for the digital asset and NFT adoption. Andrew Wilson, CEO of major video game company Electronic Arts, said last November that NFT and play-to-earn games are the future of the industry. There seems to be interest from users as well — on Wednesday, the NFT game Guild of Guardians announced it had sold more than $5 million of its original tokens prior to its Q1 2022 launch.

Speaking from Russia where, currently in exile since 2013, Snowden continues to give interviews and express his opinion on Bitcoin (BTC) and the crypto space. In fact, this NSA whistleblower used BTC to pay for the server he used to leak thousands of documents to journalists before leaving the United States.