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Chelsea Manning: 'I'm Trying to Put the Cryptography Back in Crypto'

The whistleblower turned security consultant also says the internet's basic infrastructure is not suited to privacy.

AUSTIN, Texas — While Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower turned security consultant, is skeptical of cryptocurrencies, she has gotten involved in recent years with a privacy-focused token called Nym and says the cryptographic elements of the field intrigue her.

"I'm trying to put the cryptography back in crypto," Manning, the former U.S. Army private who spent seven years in prison for one of the largest leaks of documents in military history, said Thursday at Consensus 2023 here. She added that she is "skeptical of speculative assets in general. This goes for both fiat as well as digital."

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Along the same theme of promoting privacy, she argued that the internet's basic infrastructure, which is more than a half-century old, is not suited to keeping information private. Privacy shouldn't be something "slapped on top" of the existing internet, but something considered from the start, Manning added.

Read full coverage of Consensus 2023 here.


Ian Allison

Ian Allison is a senior reporter at CoinDesk, focused on institutional and enterprise adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Prior to that, he covered fintech for the International Business Times in London and Newsweek online. He won the State Street Data and Innovation journalist of the year award in 2017, and was runner up the following year. He also earned CoinDesk an honourable mention in the 2020 SABEW Best in Business awards. His November 2022 FTX scoop, which brought down the exchange and its boss Sam Bankman-Fried, won a Polk award, Loeb award and New York Press Club award. Ian graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He holds ETH.

Ian Allison
Cheyenne Ligon

On the news team at CoinDesk, Cheyenne focuses on crypto regulation and crime. Cheyenne is originally from Houston, Texas. She studied political science at Tulane University in Louisiana. In December 2021, she graduated from CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where she focused on business and economics reporting. She has no significant crypto holdings.

Cheyenne Ligon