Bitcoin assets cannot be blocked - is that helping terrorists?

[palle11]

I have read many news about the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and how the US government froze some billions of USD belonging to the previous government or perhaps (debatable) to the country itself. Obviously, this could not have happened if those assets were held in bitcoin or other crypto. It seems that not everything is good in self-sovereignty?

You have yet talked about the nature of decentralised currency and it is the fact that if the foreign reserve of Afghanistan were in crypto, it won't be a taught for America to consider to stop the release of such fund, except there are any means that the blockchain can stop the release of coin by the owner who got the access to their coin. Yes if the coin was in bitcoin, that won't be possible but now it has been frozen.
By the way, expect more sanctions from America and bilateral trade will be severed as Taliban tries to form another government.

[hatshepsut93]

While most of the illegal activities in the world take place in USD and I am far from saying that bitcoin is actually worse than any other asset on that regard

I always found "criminals use USD more" a very poor argument, because fiat is used for EVERYTHING much more than crypto.

Obviously, this could not have happened if those assets were held in bitcoin or other crypto. It seems that not everything is good in self-sovereignty?

Both centralization and decentralization can be used for good or evil. Bitcoin is important not because it is always better than banks in every situation, but because it's an alternative system that gives people more options and better opportunities in certain situations.

If Afghanistan government stored their money in BTC, they could have easily evacuated it by sending the coins to the US government or just taking the private keys out of the country. It's the storing of cash or gold would have been a problem because it would have required logistic solutions and the government fell in a matter of days.

The advantage of centralized custody in this situation though is that if Afghanistan government had some defectors or sleeper agents of Taliban, they could have taken bitcoins before they could be moved out of reach of Taliban, but with foreign custody it's impossible.

[DrBeer]

Dollars, and indeed currencies in general, are not the most convenient means today. Cash - well, ok, you can carry suitcases in uncontrolled areas. Considering that all the "heads" of terrorist organizations (the final beneficiaries, not the executors are fanatics) keep their money in Western banks and normal countries - now cash has become a problem. Cashless accounts are also a problem. The account is blocked instantly, and unblocking is almost impossible in such a situation. Therefore, it is easier to use diamonds, crypto, and similar assets that are difficult to find and easy to move.

[Silberman]

This issue has been discussed in quite a few other threads in the past few years, and a lot of the replies that make sense to me say that it doesn't matter what the form of money a terrorist group uses; there shouldn't be any prejudice against bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency) because a criminal uses it for their activities.  If that was logical, governments would be outlawing physical cash--and they haven't done that yet, even though the world is moving away from it. 

If you hear any stories on the news about somebody using bitcoin for a ransom, to buy illegal things, or to fund terrorism, that's sensationalistic journalism plain and simple.  And it's just fuel for governments to try to ban or regulate crypto into complete uselessness.

Correct, blaming the tool for the actions taken by the person behind the tool is a mistake, we cannot ban cars, computers or telephones just because a lot of people use those tools to commit crimes, with that kind of logic we are going to need to go back to the Stone Age in order to feel secure, tools solve a problem and as long as the benefits that they bring are greater than the dangers and damages that they produce to society then we need to learn to live with the tool, and there is no doubt that bitcoin is very useful and even if some criminals decide to use it that must not be enough to enforce a ban or even heavy regulations.

[Fortify]

While most of the illegal activities in the world take place in USD and I am far from saying that bitcoin is actually worse than any other asset on that regard, I have read many news about the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and how the US government froze some billions of USD belonging to the previous government or perhaps (debatable) to the country itself. Obviously, this could not have happened if those assets were held in bitcoin or other crypto. It seems that not everything is good in self-sovereignty?

BTW, this is not a statement saying that Taliban are terrorist, just wondering about some other cases in which states were clearly linked to terror.

Most exchanges in countries like the US and Europe are now getting pretty restrictive when it comes to Know-Your-Customer type regulation. You'll be hard pushed to find many that will allow you to sell cryptocurrency directly to them without some sort of verification process. People tend to stick with the biggest companies as well because that will generally offer them better protection against hacks. You might find peer to peer transactions are a little less documented but the actual companies running things like LocalBitcoins also take the same documentation. All that together is making it pretty difficult to be anonymous and that is what nefarious criminals fear the most - creating a paper trail back to them.

[uneng]

While bitcoins can't be blocked, the terrorist still need to convert their coins. Either directly use bitcoins for doing purchases or to exchange it into fiat and then use them for illegal purposes. Both of these ways can easily be tracked. In my opinion it is just a matter of time until the punishments to help terrorist will increase. If you for example except bitcoins from terrorists to buy chemicals which then will be used to make bombs you will be held accountable.

That is a good point. For some time bitcoins held by terrorists may be safely hidden, but money isn't useful if stored forever. Sooner or later, as this money is moved, it will left some tracks and intelligence department of USA plus their allies will find it and everyone else involved on the financial operations. Furthermore, funds held in bitcoin must have came from somewhere else, what means there is also a fiat origin that can be tracked.

It would be worse if the funds were held in paper money. Then I would say it is helping terrorists, because that is the only kind of money which leaves no traces. Ironically, it's the favorite method of storing money of politicians.

[Kakmakr]

So, can anyone prove that Bitcoin is used to assist terrorism ..or are we blindly accepting the fear mongering that are blasted on popular media channels? The same media channels that selectively showing only pro "vaccine" content and refusing to show anti-vax content?

Terrorist use a lot of different things.... like Gold coins and Diamonds and Silver and US Dollars ....etc.. etc.. but that does not suit the "Media" agenda to show that. (Bitcoin and Crypto currencies must be the bad guy.. right?) 

[20kevin20]

That is a good point. For some time bitcoins held by terrorists may be safely hidden, but money isn't useful if stored forever. Sooner or later, as this money is moved, it will left some tracks and intelligence department of USA plus their allies will find it and everyone else involved on the financial operations. Furthermore, funds held in bitcoin must have came from somewhere else, what means there is also a fiat origin that can be tracked.

It would be worse if the funds were held in paper money. Then I would say it is helping terrorists, because that is the only kind of money which leaves no traces. Ironically, it's the favorite method of storing money of politicians.

Send the coins through a few CoinJoin sessions and a few ChipMixer ones, proceed to do an atomic swap from BTC to XMR and you're done. With the currently existing and known tech, even the best intel department of the US gov would not be able to crack the code and trace them down.

This is not "helping" them though. In a fair world where everyone has the same rights, you can't say "no" even to a bad guy. It's either a fair game or not, and we already have the latter. Unfortunately though, with or without Bitcoin's existence, criminals have existed and they always found a way to launder, do their terrorism acts, defraud etc.

There will be no law in the world that will have only positive reactions and effects. Any good law will at some point be exploited by the "bad guys".. so yeah, we're not really helping terrorists, it's just that there will always be a small % of BTC's users that are bad guys.

[TravelMug]

So, can anyone prove that Bitcoin is used to assist terrorism ..or are we blindly accepting the fear mongering that are blasted on popular media channels? The same media channels that selectively showing only pro "vaccine" content and refusing to show anti-vax content?

Not that we are accepting the news, but we all know that bitcoin has it's bad side as well.

Terrorist use a lot of different things.... like Gold coins and Diamonds and Silver and US Dollars ....etc.. etc.. but that does not suit the "Media" agenda to show that. (Bitcoin and Crypto currencies must be the bad guy.. right?) 

Even terrorist in Africa uses diamond, lots of assets are being used by criminals and terrorist around the world. But bitcoin being the new one, they wanted to get a taste of it and see how it goes for them. Maybe in time they will understand that it's not best to used them as they can easily be follow and track by any government agencies.

[amishmanish]

The Taliban having access to sources of funding means they will be spending that money in acquiring arms and ammunition, explosives and technologies to strengthen their "terrorist" networks and mount more attacks on western countries and allies. That is how the logic goes for imposing sanctions and blocking funds. From what we have witnessed over the past decades, there is another aspect to it. These countries belong to them and they demand to be left alone. Whether it is the Arabs, the Afghans or the Taliban. Problems arise when the people are manipulated by other countries for their own geo-political interests. Like China manipulating Pakistan and Pakistan manipulating Afghans.

Maybe for once, if they can have unblockable money and they recognize that they have all the needed resources to earn a decent living and improve their own country, maybe then they won't be turning their coming generations into hardened soldiers and suicide bombers in teenage years. As a world, we have seen what happens when "Democracies" sanction "Dictators". (Saddam, Gaddafi, Mullah Omer). Maybe Bitcoin can be the chance to see what happens when they cannot play these games anymore.

This is all just a hope though. Bitcoin liquidity and ease of exchange would be nowhere near the kind of money that "terrorists" need as an organization. Your usual suspects like the CIA, CCP, KGB etc are far more efficient at funneling those funds than bitcoin.

[semobo]

Complete freedom has both advantages and disadvantages, government claims that many of the terrorism get funds in the way of cryptocurrencies but we also can clearly see that some of the government itself funding the taliban which is ofcourse recognized as terrorist group worldwide, so it means having government itself a bad thing right?!

[Silberman]

Complete freedom has both advantages and disadvantages, government claims that many of the terrorism get funds in the way of cryptocurrencies but we also can clearly see that some of the government itself funding the taliban which is ofcourse recognized as terrorist group worldwide, so it means having government itself a bad thing right?!

Being moderate in debates does not attract viewers and that is what the media wants so whenever they are discussing bitcoin they are going to invite the person with the most outrageous opinions about bitcoin without any evidence that what they are saying is actually true, has bitcoin been used like this by those people? I think there is very little doubt this is the case, however it is way more likely they use fiat as their major source of funding as fiat still dominates the world and no one talks about banning fiat.

[agg2702]

talking about this I might say that indeed bitcoin is a pretty good money thing because they use a pretty good system that is different from currency because it is already centralized and indeed cannot be blocked.
but on the other hand with a system like this there are indeed good things and of course there are bad things because bitcoin is also not always perfect and there must be loopholes, including one of them is the use of bitcoin which is free to be done by anyone including the terrorists themselves because it is very difficult to identify it whether it is terrorist or not when it is in bitcoin.
and indeed there are no certain restrictions and prohibitions here that cause this to happen.
but that doesn't mean I support terrorists here. What I emphasize is that on the one hand bitcoin can be a good alternative but on the other hand we cannot prohibit anyone who is here from conducting transactions, whether it is ordinary people or terrorists who use it for their benefit.

[blockman]

We're thinking about the relation to how the Taliban are being funded now that IMF has already blocked them and will stop the allocation on their country after they took over the government. Whilst, we're aware of everyone keeping their assets in bitcoin, it's more intriguing that there would probably be those Afghanis that have kept their wealth into bitcoin and see this coming. Now their economy is about to collapse and at these times, their kept wealth with bitcoin is going to save them.

[dothebeats]

Given that all banks that hold Afghanistan’s wealth refuses to acknowledge the Taliban’s claim on the stash, they might turn into cryptocurrencies for the mean time in order to help them get by. It is, in part helping the terrorists by providing them a currency and an avenue wherein they can transact with people across their border without being discriminated nor ignored because of their political leanings and beliefs. Even though that’s the case, I don’t think the Talibans would have it easy given that their resources are getting spread thin day by day and they’d be needing that billions in the banks any time soon.

[rosenbauer02]

It's annoying if that will happen where the bitcoin assets can be blocked. If bit2is centralized then the terrorist that will do illegal and tried to transfer will be blocked but as we all know, bitcoin is decentralised. I don't know if a terrorist wants to cash the bitcoin to fiat but in his/her country that only have one or two wallets that can be used to sell cryptocurrency to fiat but the wallet needs KYC to create and is regulated by the bank then it is possible to block or prevent terrorist to do illegal things.

[Darker45]

I won't say Bitcoin helps terrorists in the same manner that I would also not say that the USD is helping drug lords, knives helping murderers, internet helping perverts, and so on.

The technology is even more good than neutral. There was never any intention or purpose whatsoever, I believe, of providing these terrorists and other criminals a convenient way to keep and move their funds. If Bitcoin's features provide ease to these criminals to safekeep their money, it is merely considered as an unexpected drawback of the technology under the category of unexpected consequences. Having said this, I wouldn't cast judgment on Bitcoin based on this.

[abhiseshakana]

I won't say Bitcoin helps terrorists in the same manner that I would also not say that the USD is helping drug lords, knives helping murderers, internet helping perverts, and so on.

The technology is even more good than neutral. There was never any intention or purpose whatsoever, I believe, of providing these terrorists and other criminals a convenient way to keep and move their funds. If Bitcoin's features provide ease to these criminals to safekeep their money, it is merely considered as an unexpected drawback of the technology under the category of unexpected consequences. Having said this, I wouldn't cast judgment on Bitcoin based on this.

Talking about terrorism and any crime, wealth in the form of cash, assets, crypto (bitcoin) is only a tool, as long as criminals understand or are experts in the process, not only bitcoin, all types of currencies and assets can be used for crime tools.
Simple example:
- Corruptors' cash money smuggled from Batam, Indonesia to Singapore through many people who then crossed from Batam to Singapore with cash in daily basis.
- Smuggling of cash through containers into a country,
- Cross-border money transfer with fictitious exports
So it all depends on our motives (humans) as the subject. If we are good then we will use the bitcoins in our hands well. If in the hands of bad people with evil motives, bitcoin can be used for crimes as long as the subject understands transactions using bitcoin.

[cabron]

Bitcoin has the advantage when it comes to people who personally have them on their wallets than having their money in the banks that could freeze the funds. We have witnessed this happen all over India, Cuba, and Afghanistan where people line up to the bank's door waiting for their turn but end up having nothing to withdraw because their banks are not allowing them.

We often think of violence and bombing as terrorism but it's just one form. Occupying one's country is already terrorism itself. Banks making those people go hungry and have no money to buy food for themselves is no less than terrorism as much as a government freezing billions of USD belonging to another government.

This is why countries should just adopt Bitcoin if they are not going to want to be affected because their wealth is taken from them forcibly.

[YOSHIE]

Bitcoin assets cannot be blocked - is that helping terrorists?

No, as long as Bitcoin or other crypto assets, are still in contact with Banks or the like in disbursement, except: Bitcoin can be processed directly without involving the Bank, maybe it can benefit terrorists.

Bitcoin/crypto indeed cannot be blocked, but the government can still block access for bank disbursements to banks, if their names are listed as terrorists, they can block that access, but the story of terrorists with Bitcoin is far from raising funds, terrorists were born before Bitcoin was launched, they already have tens of trillions of funds to facilitate their needs, what I want to talk about is Bitcoin is only 13 years old, terrorists have been around for centuries with quite a lot of funds.

Example: You remember when Washington and the CIA published the discovery documents during the Osama bin Laden raid, it was never in the documents, computers, files found within the al Qaeda organization contained elements or transactions that led to Bitcoin or other crypto assets, it occurred in 2011.

Terrorists prefer to use cash instead of using Bitcoin, they don't like complicated and complicated affairs, terrorists prefer simple, real and accurate, that's my thought.