Congress worries crypto used to fund domestic terrorism, Capitol insurrection

ON The U.S. Congress subcommittee is investigating whether domestic extremists are turning to cryptocurrency as a source of funding for their activities.

On February 25, the Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy will hold a hearing entitled “Dollars versus Democracy: Financing Domestic Terrorists After the Insurrection”. A committee memorandum prior to the hearing reads: “As control by traditional banks and payment platforms increases, extremists are turning to cryptocurrency demands.”

The memorandum ties cryptocurrencies together with other potential ways to fund illegal activities, including crowdfunding, charities, and social media platforms. Two main incidents suggest that crypto helped finance the Capitol uprising.

Specifically, on December 8, a suicide French extremist sent 28.15 BTC ($ 522,000 at the time of transfer) to 22 addresses, many of which included well-known far-right activists and internet personalities.

More than $ 250,000 of the BTC he sent went to activist Nick Fuentes, who was identified as being at the Capitol during the uprising despite expressly refusing to enter the building.

The other source cited in the memorandum was a live video of the Capitol protest on the video streaming platform Dlive in which the streamer received cryptocurrency tips worth around $ 222. According to the document, the platform “has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to extremists since its inception”. The platform was bought by the peer-to-peer file sharing service BitTorrent, which in turn is owned by the Tron Foundation.

However, the memo admits that the two incidents are circumstantial and that “it is not known whether the funds from these or other Bitcoin transfers were used to plan and conduct the January 6th Trump rally or the subsequent Capitol uprising were “.

The Committee believes that given the increasing funding of suspicious activity through traditional funding, future insurgents are likely to use non-traditional methods of funding their activities. It added that “some of the arrests related to the January 6 attack” were successful because of the reporting methods used by banks and other regulated financial institutions.

The narrative “cryptocurrency is a haven for criminals” is still being pushed back considerably.

Bitcoin influencer Pierre Rochard responded to the memo on Twitter: “Almost all domestic terrorism happened before Bitcoin was invented. Domestic terrorism is funded by USD. ”

Cryptocurrency investor, dubbed The Crypto Monk, said that even Pokemon cards would pay better than Bitcoin because of the cryptocurrency’s ability to track funds.

I would literally rather accept Pokemon cards than a distributed ledger.

– The Crypto Monk ⛩️ (@thecryptomonk) February 23, 2021

Stay in the Loop

Get the daily email from CryptoNews that makes reading the news actually enjoyable. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop to stay informed, for free.

Latest stories

- Advertisement - spot_img

You might also like...