Yigit Taha OZTURK 
Edward Snowden, the privacy advocate and former NSA contractor, made significant statements about decentralization at Near Protocol’s Redacted conference in Bangkok. He addressed broad topics such as cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain technologies.
Using the example of Solana, Snowden discussed the impact of venture capital (VC). He mentioned that Solana was “born in prison,” referring to its heavy reliance on VC funding. According to Snowden, this kind of financial backing can limit a blockchain network’s independence and decentralization goals.
Despite Solana’s rapid growth, Snowden expressed concerns that too much control by large investors could undermine decentralization principles. However, he acknowledged that Solana could still “become something” in the future.
A significant portion of his talk focused on decentralization and the impact of AI-driven surveillance. Snowden warned that AI-enhanced surveillance systems could increase the real-time processing of personal data, potentially enabling large-scale data analysis. He said:
“They want to train it on everything, and then they want to be able to say, you know, who looks anomalous. Look at everybody, look at the whole human body, and pick out anybody who is weird.”
Snowden also discussed the influence of VC investments by referencing Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), which voted against a proposal to deploy Uniswap v3 on BNB Chain. The venture capital firm used its 15 million Uniswap (UNI) tokens to outweigh the initial 20 million “yes” votes, highlighting how large stakeholders can dominate decentralized projects.
Finally, Snowden emphasized the importance of decentralization and privacy in emerging technologies like blockchain and AI, stressing that these principles need to be safeguarded as the technology develops.
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