隱私問題偶爾就會成為新聞周期的最前沿。

本週又發生了新聞，當時有新聞打破了政府高級官員，包括副總統JD Vance，國家安全顧問Mike Waltz和國防部長Pete Hegseth

Every once in a while privacy issues come to the forefront of the news cycle. It happened again this week when news broke that senior government officials, including Vice President JD Vance, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, along with about a dozen others including one national journalist, were included in a private chat on the encrypted Signal messaging application that was used to share detailed attack plans against a terrorist group in Yemen.

隱私問題偶爾就會成為新聞周期的最前沿。本週又發生了一次，當時有新聞打破了包括副總統JD Vance，國家安全顧問Mike Waltz和國防部長Pete Hegseth以及包括一名國家記者在內的大約十幾個其他新聞工作者在內的私人聊天中，包括一名私人聊天中，該私人聊天中包括詳細的信號消息申請中，該私人聊天被包括在Yemen Yemen中分享詳細的恐怖襲擊計劃，包括一名國家記者。

Questions are swirling around Washington, D.C. trying to figure out why such sensitive data was shared on a free commercial application. After all, the government has secure rooms and tools to discuss and disseminate such information (Editor’s note: I served as a senior intelligence analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2008-2013 and held a Top Secret clearance for the duration of my employment).

華盛頓特區周圍的問題正在旋轉，試圖弄清楚為什麼在免費的商業應用程序上共享這種敏感數據。畢竟，政府擁有安全的房間和工具來討論和傳播此類信息（編者註：我從2008 - 2013年開始擔任國防情報機構的高級情報分析師，並在工作期間保留了最高的機密許可）。

The fallout from this scandal is far from over, but briefly stepping outside the palace intrigue, it has particular importance for crypto as well. After all, there is a lot of crossover between crypto enthusiasts and privacy advocates, but it never seems like privacy grows at a similar pace to crypto acceptance.

這次醜聞的後果還遠遠沒有結束，但短暫地走出宮殿的陰謀，這對於加密貨幣也特別重要。畢竟，加密愛好者和隱私擁護者之間有很多交叉，但是似乎隱私的速度與加密貨幣的接受速度相似。

And unfortunately, the answer for why privacy in crypto shows limited adoption is the same reason why detailed military plans were shared over a commercial app. It was just easier. “People prefer convenience over security and privacy,” said Harry Halpin, CEO at Nym Technologies (NYSE:NYM), a privacy-focused blockchain company that just released a virtual private network (VPN), in an interview with Unchained. “This includes government officials and corporate executives, including people with access to the top level secrets.”

不幸的是，為什麼隱私在加密貨幣中表明採用有限的答案是如何通過商業應用共享詳細的軍事計劃的原因。這很容易。 “人們更喜歡便利而不是安全和隱私，” NYM Technologies（NYSE：NYM）的首席執行官Harry Halpin在接受《 Uncheed》採訪時剛剛發布了一個虛擬的專用網絡（VPN）。 “這包括政府官員和公司高管，包括擁有最高秘密的人。”

Vitalik Buterin, founder of the $227 billion Ethereum blockchain, put things more succinctly in a July 2024 interview with Forbes when talking about why privacy tech has struggled to take off in crypto. “The bulk of the financial value of many of these blockchains comes from average people that want to trade cats and dogs,” said Buterin. “Privacy, in general, is definitely the sort of thing that never really succeeds.”

2270億美元以太坊區塊鏈的創始人Vitalik Buterin在2024年7月的福布斯採訪時更簡潔地將事情簡潔列出，當時談論為什麼隱私技術一直在努力在Crypto起飛。 “許多這些區塊鏈的財務價值的大部分都來自想要交易貓和狗的普通人，” Buterin說。 “總的來說，隱私絕對是從未真正成功的事情。”

Privacy Isn’t Paying

隱私不支付

Perhaps the best representation of privacy tech’s struggle to take off in crypto comes back to Signal itself. It is a widely used application in government circles (clearly), but its funding relies on donations. The project itself was originally funded by government grants from groups like DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which helped first create the internet. It also received funding from the Open Technology Fund, which is affiliated with Voice of America and had its funding briefly cut off by the Trump administration before reversing course on Thursday after being sued by the group.

隱私技術在加密貨幣中起飛的鬥爭的最佳代表也可能回來發出信號。它是政府圈子中廣泛使用的應用程序（顯然），但其資金依賴於捐款。該項目本身最初是由國防高級研究項目局DARPA等團體等政府贈款資助的，該項目幫助首先創建了互聯網。它還獲得了開放技術基金的資金，該基金隸屬於美國的聲音，並在被該組織起訴後於週四撤銷了特朗普政府的資金在周四撤銷課程。

“The most absurd thing is that it seems like everyone in the Trump administration is using Signal, but they literally cut Signal’s primary historical funding sources,” said Halpin.

哈爾平說：“最荒謬的是，特朗普政府中的每個人似乎都在使用信號，但實際上他們削減了信號的主要歷史資金來源。”

In crypto the problem is even more challenging because there are no platforms with usage commensurate with something like Signal, let alone achieving sustainable economics.

在加密貨幣中，問題更具挑戰性，因為沒有與信號之類的平台相稱的平台，更不用說實現可持續的經濟學了。

Take Nym for example. The company went against the grain by creating a tool that has nothing to do with financial transactions, a VPN. This is a potentially huge market, worth over $50 billion annually with more than a billion users across commercial and retail applications. However, right now Nym’s VPN, which was released just weeks ago, has about 6,000 users and only 1,000 paying customers forking out $6-$12 a month, which Halpin says is actually high for a VPN subscription. Nym’s token (NYM), which at $.05 is down 99% from its all-time high in April 2022, is languishing despite the launch of the first product.

以Nym為例。該公司通過創建與金融交易無關的工具（VPN）來對抗穀物。這是一個潛在的巨大市場，每年價值超過500億美元，在商業和零售應用程序中有超過十億用戶。但是，現在僅在幾週前發布的Nym的VPN，只有大約6,000名用戶，只有1,000個付款客戶每月出售$ 6- $ 12，Halpin表示，VPN訂閱實際上很高。 Nym的代幣（NYM）的$ .05的價格比2022年4月的歷史最高點下降了99％，儘管推出了第一個產品，但仍在萎縮。