EDWARD SNOWDEN became notorious in 2013 after he exposed thousands of classified US Government documents in one of the most high-profile whistleblower cases of its kind.
But what is the former spy’s net worth? And what does he think of Bitcoin?
Who is Edward Snowden?
Edward Snowden was born in North Carolina on June 21, 1983 to Lonnie and Wendy Snowden. But at a young age Edward, his parents and his sister Jessica moved to Maryland, not far from the headquarters of the National Security Agency (NSA).
Snowden’s early life gave little to suggest that he would one day become a computer expert working for the US security agencies. A high school dropout, he studied at a community college between 1999 and 2005, before enlisting as an army reservist.
He lasted just four months before he was discharged after breaking both of his legs in a training accident. He instead worked as a security guard at the Center for Advanced Study of Language, a University of Maryland research facility.
Despite his lack of formal education, Snowden proved himself to be competent with computers and in 2006 was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and posted to Geneva as a network security technician in 2007.
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Two years later he left the NSA as a direct employee and started working as a private contractor selling into the government agency. It was at this time that Snowden started to become concerned about secret surveillance programmes being run by the NSA.
He requested medical leave in 2013 before fleeing to Hong Kong, where he leaked masses of NSA secrets to expose what he saw as the deterioration of citizens’ privacy.
Snowden used Bitcoin to pseudonymously pay for the servers upon which he leaked the highly classified information.
After the US Government charged Snowden with espionage, he sought asylum in Russia.
A number of advocates of Snowden’s leaks started giving him crypto to support him after he was forced to leave America.
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Who is Edward Snowden’s wife?
In 2017 Edward Snowden married Lindsay Mills.
The American acrobat and blogger had been dating Snowden since 2009, while he was still employed by the NSA. She left the US to join her partner in Russia in 2014 before getting married three years later.
In 2020 Mills gave birth to a baby boy, whose name is unknown.
What does Edward Snowden think of Bitcoin?
Edward Snowden has used Bitcoin since 2013, when it was still a relatively unknown commodity.
While he is a supporter of crypto because of its decentralised nature and the ability for exchanges to be made anonymously, he is far more sceptical of the technology as an investment.
Speaking remotely in 2022 at the cryptocurrency and blockchain conference Consensus, Snowden said: “I use bitcoin to use it. In 2013, bitcoin is what I used to pay for the servers pseudonymously.”
“Generally, I don’t encourage people to put their money in cryptocurrencies as a technology, and this is what distances me from a lot of people in the community,” he added.
What is Edward Snowden’s net worth?
At his peak, Edward Snowden was worth more than $10million, after making significant sums of money from his book “Permanent Record”, and from speeches.
However, the former spy agreed to give up $5million in 2020 as part of a lawsuit following the autobiography. The book violated the terms of contracts Snowden signed with the CIA and the National Security Agency while employed there.
The money has been put into a trust fund as part of an agreement between Snowden and the Donald Trump administration. The money will only be released to the federal government if the former secret services employee is pardoned.
After giving up the money, Snowden is thought to now have a net worth of approximately £5million.