Snowden praises Bitcoin after central trading system failure
A technical glitch on the New York Stock Exchange caused enormous chaos in the stock market. Shares of renowned companies such as Berkshire Hathaway and Barrick Gold plummeted by 99% due to an error in the trading systems. In response, whistleblower Edward Snowden naturally expressed his support for bitcoin. According to Snowden, the decentralized nature of bitcoin prevents this type of system failure.
Price outliers due to system error
Trading activities on the NYSE were suspended on Monday after a technical glitch led to extreme price swings. For example, the shares of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s investment vehicle, surprisingly fell from more than $622,000 to just $185 per share – a drop of 99%, which we actually only know from the bear markets of altcoins.
Decentralized approach as a solution
Snowden, who rose to fame by leaking NSA state secrets, responded succinctly on Twitter: “Bitcoin fixes this.” The whistleblower is referring to the decentralized design of bitcoin, where no central authority or system oversees the transactions.
Benefits of blockchain technology
Unlike traditional stock exchanges like the NYSE, bitcoin operates on a peer-to-peer network without an intermediary. The underlying piece of blockchain technology guarantees transparency, immutability and of course security. This makes the chance of such fatal failures much smaller, according to Snowden.
Proven reliability
Since its inception in 2009, Bitcoin has had only two minor incidents, both of which were quickly resolved by the developers. Immediately uptime of 99.989% cryptocurrency has proven to be a lot more robust than centralized systems such as the NYSE.
And according to him, the recent chaos shows the vulnerabilities of centralized exchanges and underlines the importance of alternatives without a single point of failure.
