Transcript Ep.570: How Much Money Are Terrorists Actually Raising in Crypto?

Here’s why it’s difficult to calculate exactly how much money terrorists are raising in crypto.

Jessi Brooks:

What the Israeli government was able to do here and in prior actions was work with Binance and Tether to freeze the funds. Now, what does that mean? Tether has, and USDC and Circle have it as well, they have something written into their smart contract that allows them to freeze the funds from getting to the end user or to make sure that the end user, a bad actor potentially does not get access to the Tether. Now think about how that does not work in traditional finance. Think about the opportunities there for industry and regulators to leverage this technology to actually stop crypto from getting into the hands of bad people through some sort of automated compliance tool or a smart contract.

Laura Shin:

Hi everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto eight years ago and as a senior editor at Forbes was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the November 13th, 2023 episode of Unchained.

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Today's topic is how much crypto Hamas has actually raised. Here to discuss are Yaya Fanusie, Director of Anti-Money Laundering and Cyber Risk at the Crypto Council for Innovation, Jessi Brooks, CCO and Legal Officer at Ribbit Capital, and Andrew Fierman,

Head of Sanction Strategy at Chainalysis. Welcome Yaya, Jessi and Andrew.

Yaya Fanusie:

Thank you.

Jessi Brooks:

Thank you.

Andrew Fierman:

Thanks for having us.

Laura Shin:

So over the last month, there's been quite a firestorm in the crypto community that has put a spotlight on the industry in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war. And it all started with a Wall Street Journal article that was published on October 10th. Why don't we just go into what it was that the article said and why it was that it created such a stir? Yaya, do you wanna start?

 Yaya Fanusie: