• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists linked to foreign account

Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Exclusive: Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists a month before Capitol riot linked to foreign account

WASHINGTON — On Dec. 8, someone made a simultaneous transfer of 28.15 bitcoins — worth more than $500,000 at the time — to 22 different virtual wallets, most of them belonging to prominent right-wing organizations and personalities.

Now cryptocurrency researchers believe they have identified who made the transfer, and suspect it was intended to bolster those far-right causes. U.S. law enforcement is investigating whether the donations were linked to the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

While the motivation is difficult to prove, the transfer came just a month before the violent riot in the Capitol, which took place after President Trump invited supporters to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” and “take back our country.”

Right-wing figures and websites, including VDARE, the Daily Stormer and Nick Fuentes, received generous donations from a bitcoin account linked to a French cryptocurrency exchange, according to research done by software company Chainalysis, which maintains a repository of information about public cryptocurrency exchanges and whose tools aid in government, law enforcement and private sector investigations. Chainalysis investigated the donations after Yahoo News shared the data points about the transaction.
Click to expand...

According to one source familiar with the matter, the suspicious Dec. 8 transaction, along with a number of other pieces of intelligence, has prompted law enforcement and intelligence agencies in recent days to actively investigate the sources of funding for the individuals who participated in the Capitol insurrection, as well as their networks. The government is hoping to prevent future attacks but also to uncover potential foreign involvement in or support of right-wing activities, the source said.

During a press conference on Tuesday on the investigation into the Capitol riot, acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said the “scope and scale of this investigation in these cases are really unprecedented.” At this time, Sherwin added, prosecutors are treating the matter as a “significant counterterrorism or counterintelligence investigation” involving deeper dives into “money, travel records, disposition, movement, communication records.”

One of the ways extremist groups have made money in recent years is online through cryptocurrency and crowdfunding. Bitcoin, which was anonymously released online in 2009 as open-source software, exists only virtually. It does not utilize a central bank or administrator to disburse funds, nor does any government control or distribute it. While bitcoin has fluctuated in value in recent years, and continues to do so, it gained mainstream popularity around 2017, the same year prominent alt-right figure Richard Spencer tweeted, “Bitcoin is the currency of the alt right.”

A 2017 Washington Post investigation explored how far-right groups turned even more aggressively toward bitcoin following the deadly August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. The story cited research by the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center that identified a large bitcoin donation to Andrew Anglin, the editor of the Daily Stormer, a prominent neo-Nazi website that accepts bitcoin donations. At the time, the donation was worth around $60,000.
Click to expand...

Though the donations are not a smoking gun or indicative of a crime, and it remains unclear to what extent the Capitol riot was coordinated in advance, the activity is nonetheless revealing, according to Kennedy.

“These extremist groups are probably more well organized and well funded than what was previously believed,” she said. Chainalysis maintains a database of “domestic extremists” who have cryptocurrency accounts, and while the company has traced donations to right-wing groups over the years, the December deposit was “the single biggest month we’ve ever observed” directed toward these causes, the researchers wrote.

“This is evidence to show they’re raising money,” Kennedy said. Additionally, the fact that the donor was outside the United States suggests “this has international scope,” she continued, a fact that “law enforcement should be paying attention to.”
Click to expand...

So, it appears someone from overseas is funneling money to extremist groups by way of Bitcoin.

Can Bitcoin be banned? Is it even possible, or is it out of reach by governments?
 
exchemist

exchemist

Veteran Member
Stevicus said:
Exclusive: Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists a month before Capitol riot linked to foreign account







So, it appears someone from overseas is funneling money to extremist groups by way of Bitcoin.

Can Bitcoin be banned? Is it even possible, or is it out of reach by governments?
Click to expand...
I think going after Bitcoin would be hard. Tracing the sources of the funds is probably the way to go. I would not be surprised if Russia or some overseas vehicle of Bannon, or one of his friends, is involved. But there is plenty of money sloshing around within the USA to fund far-right extremists, so cutting this off would probably not be a game-changer.

I suspect that, if the FBI keeps digging, quite a lot of illegal activity may be uncovered.
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Audie said:
They are going to in China.
Click to expand...
Ameristan is semi-banning it, eg, eliminating large
denominations, harassing businesses making many
cash deposits, confiscating cash when found with
people in their cars. "Discouraging" is a better word.
 
oldbadger

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Brickjectivity

Brickjectivity

wind and rain touch not this brain
Staff member
Premium Member
Audie said:
They are going to in China.
Click to expand...
Please forgive me if I consider China's government to be temporary and unstable. I admit I don't know everything going on over there or how they think about politics, but I just don't see it being stable. Its too...ripe for abuse.
 
Audie

Audie

Veteran Member
Brickjectivity said:
Please forgive me if I consider China's government to be temporary and unstable. I admit I don't know everything going on over there or how they think about politics, but I just don't see it being stable. Its too...ripe for abuse.
Click to expand...

Time will tell. I can argue it either way.
 
Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Revoltingest said:
Ameristan is semi-banning it, eg, eliminating large
denominations, harassing businesses making many
cash deposits, confiscating cash when found with
people in their cars. "Discouraging" is a better word.
Click to expand...

I think it must be due to the war on drugs, as they involve large cash transactions.
 
Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
oldbadger said:
What about honest investors and speculators?

Bad people can invest in anything.

Why not ban Wall St or the UK Stock exchange?

Can't do it, imo.
Click to expand...

Well, I would certainly have no problem banning Wall Street.
 
oldbadger

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Stevicus said:
Well, I would certainly have no problem banning Wall Street.
Click to expand...
Ha ha! And the London Stock Exchange!
Financial melt-down in the West........ Ummm..... better leave it running... my pension might disappear. :D

The thing is, there will be people who invested in bitcoin as a potential nest-egg who could now rely upon the value for a pension one day. To wrap it all up because baddies have taken advantage of it would destroy many more honest savings.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top