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Terrorists Prefer Cash Over Cryptocurrency, Even Privacy Coins: Report

The use of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin in terrorism does not pose a major risk. | Source: Shutterstock
The use of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin in terrorism does not pose a major risk. | Source: Shutterstock

An exhaustive report by the RAND Corporation concludes that cryptocurrency is less than ideal for terrorist organizations. Cash is still king for terrorists, for a variety of reasons, including the liquidity barriers that regulation and legalization of cryptocurrencies are presenting.

Cash Is Still King for Terrorism

The 99-page report focuses on three areas of terrorist financing: receipt, management, and spending. Only in the first category does cryptocurrency provide real benefits for terrorist organizations, as people can send money to them from anywhere in the world without limitations. However, if terrorists receive large amounts of cryptocurrency, it’s difficult to manage and use, as the report says:

Large receipted sums are difficult to manage or spend anonymously, and cryptocurrencies still require infrastructure to manage and spend.

The next line is perhaps even more heartwarming for those who want to use crypto without supporting any form of violence:

We see little current evidence of the adoption of cryptocurrencies by terrorist organizations or the motivation to do so, but that very well might change as countermeasures shut off funding and as the cryptocurrency technology changes.

Although the report makes a note of privacy coins, RAND does not believe that current crypto ecosystems provide the total anonymity required by terrorists. They write:

No cryptocurrency uniformly offers these features to terrorist organizations; in particular, security of current cryptocurrencies is probably inadequate for terrorist organization needs.

Read the full story on CCN.com.

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