There have been fears that the Afghanistani group, Taliban, can turn to cryptocurrency to finance their operations. Despite this, Coinbase, a platform for exchanging digital currencies, revealed surprising findings. They said that in 2020, only 0.05% of terrorist activities were funded using cryptocurrency.
In addition to this, Coinbase also revealed, that illegal activities within the crypto space accounted for less than 1% of all transactions.
Coinbase and Illegal Activities Within the Crypto Space
Writing for a blog on Medium, representatives from Coinbase said that the crypto space has evolved since the days of the infamous Silk Road, Mt. Gox, and even Satoshidice. Although illegal activity hasn’t been completely terminated, it isn’t currently anymore a concern for the crypto space than it is for traditional financial systems.
A special investigations team from Coinbase conducted an investigation to determine the prevalence of illegal activities within the crypto space. The analysis focused on transactions from large terrorist groups over the past years.
The results showcased that the terrorist group Hamas had raised the most funds using cryptocurrency. This could be as they ask for donations in the form of Bitcoin. They have been soliciting bitcoins through their website and Telegram since January 2018.
Terrorism and the Crypto Space
It isn’t just Bitcoin but also various altcoins that are being considered by terrorists. Terrorist organizations now accept Etheruem, XRP and even ERC20 donations.
Once a terror organization is identified, crypto addresses associated with these organizations are blocked.