Is Crypto the First Preference of Terrorist Organizations?

As crypto adoption surged in the past few years and as per data 2 billion users globally use crypto in their daily lives. Crypto helped many businesses to grow and also helped terrorist organizations to gather funds from anonymous sources.

Do you know why terrorists consider gathering funds in crypto? The reason behind gathering funds from crypto is the feature that makes cryptocurrencies different from paper currency and all other available currencies.

Tracking each and every transaction is quite difficult for an average crypto investor. However, there are numerous companies and firms working on the category of blockchain analysis.

The analysis firms publish their findings every quarter on their respective websites and medium pages. In the past few years, firm data states that a major surge in illicit crypto funds for terror activities has been seen.

The role of crypto in funding terrorism can be clearly seen in the recent Israel attack backed by crypto and planned by Hamas militants. Following the angle of crypto Israel police professionals and technical experts tracked dozens of crypto wallets that received funds before the attack.

Chainalysis said in its reports that significant groups in the terrorist world use crypto as funding. However, the remaining other terrorist groups use the Hawala system to collect the funding.

Will Crypto Play an Important Role in Upcoming Terrorist Activities?

A report from international media outlet Bloomberg states that currently 5% of entire terrorist activities are funded using crypto, but an unexpected surge is likely to be seen in upcoming years.

The data from the news outlet states that crypto is likely to surge by 20% in the next few years.

The Wall Street Journal reported that three organizations, namely Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Hezbollah, acquired substantial amounts of funds through cryptocurrency. WSJ reported the names based on the data from the Israeli government and blockchain analytics.

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, a Hamas militant wing, received approximately $100,000 in Bitcoin (BTC).

Elliptic data states that Palestinian Islamic Jihad gathered over $92 Million in crypto from August 2021 to June 2023; moreover, Hamas received $41 Million in the same duration of time.

When writing about the leader of all cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin was trading at $30,500 with an intraday trading volume of $16,538,478,933. In the past 24 hours, BTC prices rose 1.83% and its trading volume surged over 22%.

Disclaimer

The views and opinions stated by the author, or any people named in this article, are for informational ideas only and do not establish financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading crypto assets comes with a risk of financial loss.