Buterin and crypto leaders warn X’s country labels risk privacy

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and several crypto executives warned that X’s new feature displaying an account holder’s country could expose users to privacy risks. 

X head of product Nikita Bier announced the rollout and presented it as a way to improve platform integrity and help people verify information. He described the new “About This Account” panel as a transparency tool to help verify authenticity, indicating which country or region an account is based in.

Buterin responded that some accounts will try to spoof locations. He initially saw potential benefits, such as more visibility into how communities view issues, but later wrote that disclosing country data without an opt-out would be wrong. 

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,

he wrote.

Criticism also came from other crypto leaders. Uniswap founder Hayden Adams opposed the change, saying he strongly disliked it and that while opt-in disclosure of identity might be acceptable, making such disclosure mandatory was, in his view, extreme and harmful. 

Andrei David, chief technology officer at decentralized finance platform Summer.fi, argued that privacy controls should not default to exposure and that the real issue was not displaying a user’s country but forcing everyone into visibility without warning. 

Some users also warned that the label could make it easier for bad actors to identify and target high-net-worth investors in the offline world. Bier noted a privacy control to show only a region rather than a country, “for those in countries where speech has penalties.” 

Other users welcomed the feature, noting that listing a country in large nations like the United States does not pinpoint an individual. Crypto investor Nic Carter contended that location labels could discourage overseas accounts from posing as domestic voices in political debates.

X positioned the feature as a way to add context about who users are interacting with and where an account is based. Crypto users focused on privacy argued that even generalized location, when combined with other data points.