Amit Kumar: Bitcoin may be used for terrorism financing

There is a question that has always puzzled the traditional financial industry - how do terrorist organizations like IS launder money?

The topic of Bitcoin being used for terrorist financing has been mentioned repeatedly, and it seems that this topic will continue to be discussed. Amit Kumar, an American counter-terrorism expert , said that according to further investigation, Bitcoin has played an important role in the process of terrorist financing. Considering this, it is crucial to combat terrorist financing.

More references on Bitcoin and terrorism financing

This is not the first time that Bitcoin has been accused of terrorist financing. In fact, it dates back to 2015 , when US law enforcement arrested a teenager suspected of funding the IS organization. To be precise, the report involved the issue of Bitcoin financing, and the process left no trace.

Bitcoin users will be happy to tell Mr. Kumar that Bitcoin is the least viable option for terrorist financing because of its real-time ledger technology, blockchain, which records every transaction in the world. However, he did mention how Bitcoin transactions can be effectively monitored and how the banking system should take the concept seriously.

Amit Kumar explained his thinking:

If a Bitcoin user buys Bitcoin, he may have an intersection with the banking system through PayPal or other online banking. Through monitoring, the potential for terrorists to use Bitcoin can be reduced. Otherwise, Bitcoin transactions and use will become completely anonymous.

Until now, there has been no definitive evidence that a unit of satoshi ( the smallest unit of bitcoin) worth 0.00000001 bitcoin has been used for terrorist financing. No one has argued that bitcoin and terrorism financing are completely unrelated. But there is no evidence to support these claims, and the trial process has not yet intervened.

There is a question that has always puzzled the traditional financial industry: how do terrorist organizations like IS launder money? A recently leaked Panama Paper has proved to the world that it is difficult to launder money using Bitcoin, but the banking system seems to be "tailor-made" for money laundering .

In addition, Kumar believes that the communication networks used by terrorist organizations need to be shut down. Compared with the original idea, the implementation of the solution is much more difficult, and things have even taken a strange turn, with some people proposing to weaken the encryption strength of American consumer devices. These proposals have not attracted much support from the public and have been shelved.