隐私问题偶尔就会成为新闻周期的最前沿。

本周又发生了新闻，当时有新闻打破了政府高级官员，包括副总统JD Vance，国家安全顾问Mike Waltz和国防部长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.

隐私问题偶尔就会成为新闻周期的最前沿。本周又发生了一次，当时有新闻打破了包括副总统JD Vance，国家安全顾问Mike Waltz和国防部长Pete Hegseth以及包括一名国家记者在内的大约十几个其他新闻工作者在内的私人聊天中，包括一名私人聊天中，该私人聊天中包括详细的信号消息申请中，该私人聊天被包括在Yemen Yemen中分享详细的恐怖袭击计划，包括一名国家记者。

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).

华盛顿特区周围的问题正在旋转，试图弄清楚为什么在免费的商业应用程序上共享这种敏感数据。毕竟，政府拥有安全的房间和工具来讨论和传播此类信息（编者注：我从2008 - 2013年开始担任国防情报机构的高级情报分析师，并在工作期间保留了最高的机密许可）。

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.

这次丑闻的后果还远远没有结束，但短暂地走出宫殿的阴谋，这对于加密货币也特别重要。毕竟，加密爱好者和隐私拥护者之间有很多交叉，但是似乎隐私的速度与加密货币的接受速度相似。

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，为什么隐私在加密货币中表明采用有限的答案是如何通过商业应用共享详细的军事计划的原因。这很容易。 “人们更喜欢便利而不是安全和隐私，” NYM Technologies（NYSE：NYM）的首席执行官Harry Halpin在接受《 Uncheed》采访时刚刚发布了一个虚拟的专用网络（VPN）。 “这包括政府官员和公司高管，包括拥有最高秘密的人。”

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.”

2270亿美元以太坊区块链的创始人Vitalik Buterin在2024年7月的福布斯采访时更简洁地将事情简洁列出，当时谈论为什么隐私技术一直在努力在Crypto起飞。 “许多这些区块链的财务价值的大部分都来自想要交易猫和狗的普通人，” Buterin说。 “总的来说，隐私绝对是从未真正成功的事情。”

Privacy Isn’t Paying

隐私不支付

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.

隐私技术在加密货币中起飞的斗争的最佳代表也可能回来发出信号。它是政府圈子中广泛使用的应用程序（显然），但其资金依赖于捐款。该项目本身最初是由国防高级研究项目局DARPA等团体等政府赠款资助的，该项目帮助首先创建了互联网。它还获得了开放技术基金的资金，该基金隶属于美国的声音，并在被该组织起诉后于周四撤销了特朗普政府的资金在周四撤销课程。

“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.

哈尔平说：“最荒谬的是，特朗普政府中的每个人似乎都在使用信号，但实际上他们削减了信号的主要历史资金来源。”

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.

在加密货币中，问题更具挑战性，因为没有与信号之类的平台相称的平台，更不用说实现可持续的经济学了。

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为例。该公司通过创建与金融交易无关的工具（VPN）来对抗谷物。这是一个潜在的巨大市场，每年价值超过500亿美元，在商业和零售应用程序中有超过十亿用户。但是，现在仅在几周前发布的Nym的VPN，只有大约6,000名用户，只有1,000个付款客户每月出售$ 6- $ 12，Halpin表示，VPN订阅实际上很高。 Nym的代币（NYM）的$ .05的价格比2022年4月的历史最高点下降了99％，尽管推出了第一个产品，但仍在萎缩。