Crypto and Hamas: Why Elizabeth Warren is Wrong

It didn’t take long for the media to focus on Hamas’ cryptocurrency fundraising, particularly through the stablecoin Tether. Sense. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Roger Marshall (R., Kan.) jumped at the opportunity to use this revelation to strengthen his crypto-regulation bill. But their attempt to exploit the October 7 attacks to advance their legislative agenda is misguided.

There is no evidence that crypto is used more often or more effectively than traditional banking to finance terrorism. Hamas acquired crypto on transparent blockchains, not through private blockchains and crypto privacy tools such as Monero or Zcash. Hamas used Bitcoin and Tether, which are both traceable and easily frozen by exchanges. In fact, the terrorist organization stopped soliciting cryptocurrency donations precisely because they were so easy to trace.