The European Union is set to let the terrorists win and strike a blow against freedom by cracking down on Bitcoin.
In a meeting set to be held Friday, European Union interior and justice ministers will gather for a crisis meeting following the Islamic terrorist attacks on Paris last week where they will urge the European Commission (the EU executive arm) to propose measures to “strengthen controls of non-banking payment methods such as electronic/anonymous payments and virtual currencies and transfers of gold, precious metals, by pre-paid cards,” Reuters reported.
The same draft document that includes a crackdown on Bitcoin is said to also include a plan “to curb more effectively the illicit trade in cultural goods,” presumably a reference to antiquities smuggled out of ISIS held territories and sold on the black market for a profit.
Bitcoin’s role in the Paris terrorist attacks isn’t entirely certain, despite the fact that the Ghost Security Group suggested earlier this week that Bitcoin may have been used to finance the attacks; the reality is that while it’s known that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has around $3 million held in Bitcoin accounts on the Dark Web, it’s still pure conjecture that those funds were used to finance the attacks in Paris, particularly given that at this stage it would appear that the attackers themselves were European citizens with no clear ties to ISIS.
http://siliconangle.com/blog/2015/11/19/terrorists-win-european-union-to-crack-down-on-bitcoin-post-paris-terrorist-attacks/
