Hayden Adams, the creator of Uniswap, asserted that X’s novel functionality, which indicates the nation where an account is domiciled, amounted to a type of “compulsory identity disclosure.”
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin declared that a novel functionality deployed by X, which discloses an account holder’s nation, was considered “hazardous,” thus concurring with cryptocurrency users who had alerted the community to privacy issues regarding the enhancement.
X’s Director of Product, Nikita Bier, revealed that the functionality was implemented on Saturday, characterizing it as a mechanism intended to safeguard the platform’s authenticity and permit users to authenticate given details.
Buterin Warns Users Could Fake Their Location Despite Potential Benefits of the New Feature
Buterin stated on Sunday that certain accounts ultimately will devise methods to “feign origination from nations that are not their own,” though he initially believed the modification could yield beneficial outcomes, such as better insight into the perspectives that are held by individuals from diverse communities concerning various topics.
Several cryptocurrency adherents voiced anxieties that malicious parties could leverage the functionality to track affluent investors more readily for physical assault, in addition to other privacy-related issues that were raised.
“I thought about this more and I think responders are right that revealing the country non- ‘consensually without offering any opt-out option, not even stop using your account, is wrong,”
Buterin later said.
“In most cases, revealing country still leaves a very large anonymity set, but there are some people for whom even a few bits of leakage are risky, and they should not have their privacy retroactively rugpulled with no recourse.”
Crypto Executives Also Raise Privacy Concerns
The creator of Uniswap, Hayden Adams, was also positioned in staunch opposition to the novel feature, asserting, “I despise this. Identity disclosure when voluntary is acceptable; when compulsory, it is deranged.”
Andrei David, who serves as the Chief Technology Officer for the decentralized finance platform Summer.fi, was similarly troubled by the repercussions related to user confidentiality.
“The problem isn’t showing country; it’s forcing everyone into visibility without notice. A privacy-sensitive feature should always start with the least revealing setting,”
he said.
Crypto Users Explain How to Opt Out
Bier mentioned that a privacy switch was provided to exclusively reveal an account’s geographical area, specifically “for those residing in nations where expression entails punitive measures.”
The X user named “Langerius,” a prominent figure at the Web3 consulting and community organization Hunters of Web3, stated that a mechanism is accessible for apprehensive users to selectively withdraw from the recently introduced feature.
“If you want to hide it: 1- turn it off: settings & privacy → privacy & safety → disable country visibility 2- or switch from country to region/continent in same menu,”
they explained.
Others Express Less Concern Over the Feature
Conversely, certain X users expressed a more favorable opinion regarding the new functionality. Some maintained that disclosing an account’s geographic placement within a nation the scale of the US, possessing a populace of roughly 350 million, was improbable to permit anyone to be readily identified.
Furthermore, additional commentators, including the crypto venture capitalist Nic Carter, asserted that the functionality was essential to preclude accounts connected to international users from seeking to disrupt political processes by falsely suggesting they were originating from a specific nation.
