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Edward Snowden warns: Gamers could be exploited by NFTs



The prominent whistleblower Edward Snowden fears that crypto companies and game manufacturers could try to exploit gamers with the currently much hyped Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).


Snowden voiced the relevant concerns on Friday at the BlockDown DeData online conference in an interview with Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood. Snowden admits that there are useful uses for the NFTs, such as collecting donations for charitable purposes, nonetheless he is concerned that the technology is "creeping into the gaming arena". In this context, he even describes the metaverse, which is part of the NFT market, as “terrible, insidious and tragic”, as this would be an attempt to capitalize on the escapism of virtual worlds.


"Some people try to create an artificial scarcity in an area that no longer knows scarcity," as Snowden denounces the general concept of gaming NFTs. To this end, he explains: "I think that the community should rather work on diverting development away from this artificial, unnecessary shortage from which a small group of investors benefits."


Wood does not share this view and replies that he sees NFTs in gaming more as a kind of digital one-offs of in-game items. If game developers were to sell these, it would be like musicians selling NFTs from their music . Thereupon Snowden counters again that the gamblers, however, “do not pay for a guaranteed product”, but instead only acquire “the chance at something” and do not receive a guaranteed claim to ownership. Accordingly, players could easily be exploited by the technology.


"I have no problem with game developers restricting access to their products like they always have," said Wood. He continues: "In my opinion, NFTs are just a new way to restrict access."


The Snowden-Wood debate comes at a time when game developers and publishers are increasingly squinting towards digital assets and NFTs. So says Andrew Wilson, executive director of the influential video game company Electronic Arts that NFTs and Play-To-Earn are the future of the industry. However, gamers do not necessarily see the advance of the new technology with similar criticism, because, for example, the NFT game Guild of Guardians has already brought in over 5 million US dollars in the form of the associated crypto currency since it was launched in Q1 2022 .



Snowden, who has lived in exile in Russia since 2013, repeatedly gives interviews and comments on topics that primarily concern technical and social change. The whistleblower has already commented on Bitcoin ( BTC ), blockchain and crypto several times . Interestingly, the computer scientist used Bitcoin to pay for the servers on which he leaked the secret NSA documents that caused a sensation worldwide.

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