The famous Edward Snowden sold his first NFT at an auction for 2.224 Ethereum (~ 5,5 million $).
The NFT is a Snowden-themed work of art from the pages of a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that found the NSA surveillance program illegal.
In case you did not know, Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs allow users to buy and sell digital items that have been verified using blockchain.
Currently, NFTs support Ethereum ERC-721 and ERC-1155 Standard. Unlike regular projects, NFTs are unique and non-interchangeable.
NFTs have recently grown with the explosion of encryption and artists seem to be increasingly adopting them as a way of selling their work online. Recently, the founder and CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as NFT for $ 2,9 million.
Like Dorsey, Snowden will not make any money and donate it to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, where Edward Snowden is president alongside actor John Cusack, Daniel Ellsberg, and Glenn Greenwald.
Commenting on the sale, Trevor Timm, Executive Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation said:
We are grateful for the continuing impact of Snowden's complaint, and perhaps there is no better reminder of that impact than the first decision on the programs he presented. We are very excited to use the proceeds of this auction to advance our work to develop and improve technology that can protect journalists and their sources, such as SecureDrop, the open source complaint system.
Edward Snowden released the following statement through the Freedom of the Press Foundation:
Emerging cryptographic applications can play an important role in upholding our rights. This auction will lead to the development of valuable and protected types of encryption, to ensure freedom of the press and to serve the public.
Snowden now lives in Moscow and was recently granted permanent residence in Russia. Russia has also made some changes to its laws that allow Snowden to apply for dual US and Russian citizenship with his wife Lindsay Mills.
Last year, a U.S. court ruled in Snowden's favor and ruled that the NSA mass surveillance program violated the U.S. Constitution.
