In December 2013, journalist Barton Gellman interviewed Edward Snowden in Moscow and asked about his living conditions as a former U.S. intelligence official living in Putin's Russia.

“Unnecessary question,” Snowden responded, according to Gellman's book, "Dark Mirror," because Silicon Valley-based supporters had had sent him "enough bitcoins to live on until the f***ing sun dies."

At the time, the highly-volatile price of bitcoin had recently briefly surpassed $1,000 for the first time. It’s unclear how much bitcoin Snowden possessed or the average price-per-bitcoin of his holdings.

On October 27, 2022, with the price of bitcoin around $20,000, Decrypt Editor-in-Chief Dan Roberts asked Snowden: “So unless you sold all of it… Are you bitcoin rich these days? And, I think I read recently that you are working doing IT for a company there in Russia. Is that the case? And why do you need to work?”

Snowden, appearing via video for the wide-ranging interview at Camp Decrypt, laughed and replied: “So one thing I would say: Don’t trust everything that you read in the press. Secondly, that [bitcoin comment]… was a private comment that wasn’t meant to be published. But look, my advice is, as a privacy advocate: If anybody asks you what crypto you have, what you hold, the answer is: ‘What is crypto?’ But I’m not at risk of going hungry, certainly not this year. Let’s put it that way.”

Gellman did not respond to a request for comment about Snowden's assertion that the original bitcoin claim was off the record.

The U.S. government alleges that Snowden removed 1.5 million classified documents from U.S. systems in 2012 and 2013 while working as an NSA contractor in Hawaii before providing roughly 200,000 of those documents to journalists and eventually settling in Russia.

A torrent of disclosures stemming from the leaked documents exposed various aspects of America's post-9/11 surveillance practices, including both domestic dragnet programs and international espionage campaigns. Other aspects of the Snowden saga — such as the 39-year-old’s living conditions or the fate of documents not provided to journalists — remain unclear.

On August 1, 2013, the day that Russia officially approved Snowden’s request for asylum, prominent Kremlin-linked lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told reporters that Snowden would look to “build a new life in Russia." In the years that followed, Kucherena repeatedly told reporters that the former CIA technician held an IT job at an unnamed company.

“Edward Snowden will begin working in one of the biggest Russian companies,” Kucherena, who took on the case pro bono and became Snowden’s primary spokesperson, announced on Oct. 31, 2013. “His job will be to provide support and develop one of Russia’s biggest websites.”