Last week, a group of lawmakers led by crypto-hating senators Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren delivered a letter to US President Joe Biden’s office, demanding answers regarding the role cryptocurrencies played in sponsoring the deadly assault on Israel. Moreover, they pushed Biden to adopt measures for preventing crypto-sponsored terrorism.
The lawmakers’ letter is one of the many factors driving the narrative in the United States that cryptocurrencies facilitated the October 7 attack executed by Gaza-based militia group Hamas, leaving over 1,400 people dead and taking captive at least 220, according to the Israeli government.
Since 2019, Hamas, a terror group that rules Gaza, has been raising funds through crypto. However, some analysts who monitor the on-chain activities of the criminal group have dismissed the narrative that digital currencies played a huge role in financing the attack on Israel. Moreover, they do not agree with the US lawmakers that crypto poses significant threats to safety compared to traditional financial systems.
Ari Redbord says Hamas Only Received a Small Amount of Crypto
Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, Ari Redbord, said earlier this week that cryptocurrencies make up a very small portion of the funds raised by Hamas. TRM Labs is a blockchain intelligence company that tracks the crypto addresses of criminal organizations. The transparency offered by blockchain makes it easy for authorities to detect accounts owned by terror groups and freeze them with the help of crypto exchanges.
Since the start of the war, the US and Israeli governments have frozen hundreds of exchange accounts managed by Hamas.
“Embrace Crypto,” Former CIA Director Tells Government
Earlier this year, CIA ex-director Michael Morell labeled crypto as a “tool for surveillance” that governments across the globe needed to embrace. At the time, Morell acknowledged that it was impossible for traditional finance systems to offer the level of transparency that crypto provides.
He urged investigators to leverage the transparency of blockchain to easily track the movement of illicit funds and bring culprits to book.
Although Redbord admits that terror groups have used cryptocurrencies to raise funds over the years, he argues that these organizations will utilize any available fundraising means, even traditional finance systems. Redbord wonders why lawmakers are not talking about bringing down traditional banks because they have been facilitating the transfer of funds to terror groups for decades.
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