Topic: Bitcoin assets cannot be blocked - is that helping terrorists? (Read 646 times)

This is the biggest bullshit I have often heard from governments rejecting crypto especially Bitcoin. Everywhere, they say the same thing even the previous drop in BTC price was caused by influencers who said the same thing. It really doesn't make sense, if they fight the existence of BTC with classic reasons like that. Which type of investment really doesn't destroy nature? Or what currency is the most frequently used by terrorists? Isn't it that terrorist activities have always been supported by fiat, otherwise how can they buy weapons and so on.

Fiat is currently very bad with a lot of evidence available, the solution offered by BTC will disrupt many things so that the initial rejection is very hard because they and their access are disrupted by the presence of BTC. Hopefully the public will soon realize how the government continues to hinder the freedom in managing our personal money.

Can this be so because they are untracable? I'm not saying terrorists using them, but how could we know?


By "intentional" you mean they just want to create clickbait articles, or some other purposes? Because I feel like many journalists often understand very poorly what they are writing about, and their main intention is to be liked by the audience, which is even more ignorant than they are, and get paid for their job.


I absolutely agree with this. Same as they blame Bitcoin mining in contribution to carbon footprint, hiding their failures in creating more clean energy sources.

Well, Bitcoin transactions are publicly verifiable by anyone on the Blockchain. I don't think Bitcoin is going to help terrorists, since it's easy to track down suspicious transactions on an open ledger. Maybe a privacy coin like Monero or Zcash will do the trick. Bitcoin mixers may obfuscate transactions on the Blockchain, but most of them are centralized. Non-custodial mixers would be the only option, but not many terrorists are tech-savvy enough to use them for their own benefit.

A major hurdle one would have to face when using Bitcoin would be dealing with a centralized exchange to convert it to Fiat. Most (if not all) centralized exchanges require KYC, so it's easy enough for governments to restrict access to them at will. Countries which depend on Bitcoin to avoid sanctions have no choice but to trade Bitcoin in-person to get Fiat in return. If everything is done in a decentralized manner (no middleman involved in the process), then there would be no way to block Bitcoin transactions. Some countries have recognized Bitcoin's true benefits, adopting them as legal tender. El Salvador is the first country to make such a move, and others may follow as Fiat continues to lose traction in the mainstream world. If this keeps up, it may be impossible to prevent terrorists from using Bitcoin altogether. Just my thoughts

I do relate to the statement. Restrictions are bigger if you are handling bigger funds, liquidating BTC to fiat is not efficient due to limitations. We've seen cases of losing account access just from a withdrawal from casino sites. Imagine these terrorists use it; detection is really possible. It could also be detrimental to the image of the coins and community. I do accept the fact that bitcoin is used illegally, but not on other bigger issues.

Bitcoin is a help to the people, and as such are most times attributed to positive impacts.
And the statement of it helping terrorists is what cannot be said, or explained clearly.

There are several banks that have been involved in criminal activity and money laundering. They are pretty small though, I don't think you have heard of them: JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon

Currently, bitcoin is used for precisely one purpose: the exchange of value, which is neither good nor bad. The illegal things you mentioned had existed for years before bitcoin was created, which means it has always been a problem of bad people, not "bad money."

I am not sure which centralized and regulated banks are allowing the deposit of illegally acquired funds. Yes some foreign banks are allowing the deposit of money without any paperwork but the truth is that you are still under their control and at any time they might leak your information and wealth to your local government.

Bitcoins are used for many wrong things and I know because I have seen them. Not sure whether terrorists use Bitcoins or not but a lot of other illegal things are associated with Bitcoins. Some of them are:

1- Underage gambling & Porn
2- Hackers asking for BTC
3- Money Laundering
4- Tax Evasion

It's not about power, it's about the regulation as well since bitcoins as a whole is tightly regulated and manipulated as well therefore storing it etc.. might now work out perfectly well. Terrorist organizations might not be just getting help but uncontrollable power as well if not done right.


It is but one cannot just deny the implications it comes with. Bitcoins is something strong and can be misused anytime anywhere as well. Therefore we have to believe in it and accept it. Make changes to improve it in the future. Making changes will start with realization and we have to understand that at some places and points bitcoins might give them an unnecessary advantage for sure. Virgin coins might be a disaster for us as well.

Any thinking person can understand this but the media and the government keeps pushing this narrative because they want to create a negative image of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general among the population so when the time comes they do not adopt them and instead they decide to adopt the digital currencies they are creating already, do I think it will work? Yes but not to the extent they want as there is many smart people that can see through this and that will decide to enter this market anyway.

Yes, Bitcoin by design is not meant to assist terrorism or illegal activities but unfortunately, the decentralized nature is moulding it into such. Bitcoin was created to give people the power of transactions and disrupt the banking sector, but in doing so, ultimately wrongdoers are getting benefited.

People don't realize that terrorists can make their own coin and demand ransom in their own coin too. If they are using bitcoins for their illegal activities then it's not the right call to judge the purpose of bitcoins.

And to be honest, bitcoins can be tracked to an extent if some mixer or fresh addresses are not used. Now people might start questioning mixers but again they are designed for privacy but used for wrong activities.

My point is why people always try to think negatively about bitcoin when people themselves are reusing bitcoin freely in any form legal or illegal it doesn't make any sense  chief.  And not to mention before bitcoin was born, do you think there was no other way of terrorism?  This is ironic and really unfair.  People are expecting perfection so much that they forget what bitcoin really means.  Bitcoin is not the only tool for potentially illegal activity.  Why is no one talking about illegal activities for fiat like corruption, bribery.  Bitcoin's essence is objective positivity

Many people think that bitcoin is used for illegal transactions from terrorists, I think this is difficult to prove, the fact until now is that many banks are willing to accept money even from illegal sources such as corruption, it has become a fact that corruptors in my country are very happy to use foreign banks to save money from corruption.

Whenever someone says "bitcoin allows bad people to do things" always remind them, were there no bad people before bitcoin was created? I mean even if they think that all those bad things are 100% fully crypto right now (which obviously is not, we all know that) even in that case before 2009 were there not any bad people? Terrorists, mafia, scammers?

I mean fiat is the number one thing they use, crypto is still not fully supported by bad people yet because they are not really aware of how to use it too much. Do you really think that ISIS invest into bitcoin much? Or Taliban? It is obvious that they use fiat and will keep on using fiat.

Plus, if those big nations really wanted to let those nations be good, they were good before Russia and USA came in and destroy the nation, Afghanistan was a great place before them, okay maybe not "great" for EU standards but still a good place, now it is a hellhole because big nations came in and destroyed everything.

Even with Monero and Zcash, there is no concrete evidence that they are being used for terrorism. XMR and ZEC have even serious liquidity issues, since their trade volumes are much lower when compared to established cryptocurrencies. Journalists just want sensationalism and use these sort of stories as clickbait. That said, I don't want to call them as ignorant. It's all intentional. Also, for the governments cryptocurrency is just a convenient excuse to hide their own failures in combating global terrorism.

Bitcoin itself is not wrong. Bitcoin has the same attitude towards everyone. There is an error in this proposition. From another perspective, if the previous government uses digital currency, his funds will not be frozen, but I will consider, does the United States still protect the previous government? Everything is for profit, and there is no free lunch. For many countries that want to get rid of the dollar control. Will the US government not impose an economic blockade on them?

That's right, using fiat currency is much more convenient for terrorists because, unlike Bitcoin, it's 100% anonymous. Blaming BTC is ridiculous, but if we think of it, since recently no serious person blames BTC in helping terrorists. It's ignorant journalists who don't know the difference between Monero, Zcash and the likes and Bitcoin write those foolish articles, and fortunately fewer and fewer people read them.

On top of that, Taliban and ISIS have regularly raided central banks and other financial institutions, taking vast reserves of fiat cash. Almost all of their dealings (ransom payments, purchase of weapons, sales of drugs.etc) are conducted using fiat currency. And yet, it is cryptocurrency which receives the blame. There are reasons why these terror groups prefer physical cash to cryptocurrency. First of all, cryptocurrency is not 100% anonymous since the transactions are recorded in Blockchain. And secondly, the liquidity will be an issue with larger amounts, especially in countries like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

I think its funny to think that all the restrictions should be in place just becouse of terrorists.
Nato,Russia,China who all claim to be anti terror organised, could easily eliminate any threat.
Yet.
Isis drives Toyotas imported from US, Assault rifles made in Russia.
Taliban now has US Vehicles, aircraft ,weapons. Etc.

Basically the government of a country can only regulate without being able to prevent bitcoin transaction. They cannot block transaction thus allowing bitcoin to be used for various payment purposes. I also don't think that government can freeze bitcoin on the network if they don't have the private key because bitcoin isn't a currency they can control like a centralized fiat currency. Bitcoin decentralization could give terrorists more opportunities to function as untraceable means of payment. I think the mixer can also help them hide where the transaction is going.

If we talk about the uniqueness of BTC that cannot be regulated by the government and cannot be frozen then this is a very clear privilege that BTC is a decentralized currency, but if this is related to illegal actions and benefits them.  I strongly disagree, whatever innovation is given, illegal acts will always exist.  But society always blames the media and its tools.  It should not be the function of decentralized BTC that is being discussed but how to remove illegal acts..

No, I have a feeling you really don't know that the people behind the terrorist name are intelligent people as well as very tech savvy. Since bitcoin is a currency, it is possible to use it for illegal acts such as terrorist financing, money laundering, and many other things. Regardless of whether the country supports cryptocurrencies or not, bitcoin transaction can never be prevented by the government. Regulation can't really prevent bitcoin transaction from being broadcast even if you're in a country with minimal technology infrastructure.

Bitcoin is very safe because it is not associated with financial institutions or institutions and transactions are carried out in a decentralized manner.  It protects its users because this digital money system eliminates personal data.
Simply.I think terrorists only use dollars from, not Bitcoin.  The reason is simple Bitcoin is not a liquid currency, like the dollar.
Bitcoin is difficult to use for transactions, especially in countries that have minimal technological infrastructure.
Bitcoin is difficult to use quickly.  In addition, acceptance of digital money is very limited in regions such as the Middle East and North Africa, where terrorist groups are most active.

This is a very important point, if we take into account that the biggest scams worldwide have been with FIAT money, BTC does not figure or have any sustainable comparison knowing that many governments and banks are enemies of BTC, the point here is, yes BTC it is not taken into account and is not valid in all countries, you cannot be blamed for it. In case the money had not been blocked, access it from the source, unless the private key is handled by more than 1 person and needs the authorization of those who handle it, it is obvious, this is a way to move a lot of money But due to the global policies of governments and banks, that money remains as if it were in the air. The flaw is, that money is not deflationary, they can continue printing and that problem is solved.

This is a good observation, if anything they could be using bitcoin for small transactions as any big transaction even if it is being done on-chain it is going to bring attention about what is happening there, and if the coins are at some point converted to cash then there is going to be a record of that somewhere in an exchange, so this theory that bitcoin is helping criminals is actually being overblown, something that does not surprise me taking into account how afraid of bitcoin banks and governments really are.

You mean bigger money will be easier to cash out? I don't think that's correct (but I don't know for sure lol). For a small amount of money, as you said, cashing out won't be a problem with local bitcoin or exchanges. If terrorist want to cash out big money, since bank wire transfer isn't an option, I imagine it would be like face-to-face transaction in the movie where one party betrays the other (and the shooting begins). I didn't argue about the government capability of blocking such tx at the protocol level (valid tx with sufficient fees will be mined, that's the rule), but more about the practicality of using BTC for funding terrorists.

On the other hands this also a great idea that Government is not always over everything .

because indeed that this is hard for them to freeze assets from bad elements but also we knew how crooks run in government and this also sometimes leads to abusing .

so best that there is crypto in which cannot be harmed for those occasions .

Actually this problem is due to lack of education to the entire population in the world about Bitcoin, so they only get information from the government.
Most of the information the government provides is wrong, so in my environment very few people know about Bitcoin. Those who know Bitcoin also
think Bitcoin is bad, so it's our job who know the truth about Bitcoin at least try to educate those closest to us first. That can help a little bit to
reduce misconceptions about Bitcoin.

Im aint surprised with these kind of discussions in talking about money laundering or terrorist funding and come to think off that if its possible with fiat then how much more on using up Bitcoin?

Anonymity does really have its specific role when it comes on making transactions anonymous which is the best recipe on funding something neither could be a terrorist or simply passing up money or funds
to your loved ones and so on.

Does it really matter? Even if you do but still theres nothing you can do.

For you and me (well, I do not know you, just guessing that), it may be difficult to cash out. We probably would be thinking of local bitcoins or an exchange. However, when you are talking big money, you can certainly look for an over the counter partner for the case and believe me it is not going to take long to find one. If you think of it, some countries did not retire their embassies from Kabul so it may even be organised via a partner state. Even if transactions can be traced, that type of funds cannot be blocked an will always find a friendly hand.

Modern problems require modern solutions. There is one problem that people can't understand: If we talk about illegal activities, bitcoin isn't problem alone but a whole crypto world. Will you ban bitcoin? Then we have Monero. Will you ban Monero? Then there are other cryptocurrencies and guess what? They are unique and their structure, work of mechanism is different from each-other and they aren't the clones.

Sharp knife is used to cut bread and also is used to cut someone's stomach. Knife can't be blocked, is that helping terrorists? <-- How would you answer to this question? The progress of cryptocurrencies and modern information technologies is just unstoppable and in this case both, bad and good guys benefit via the same thing because the medal has always two sides, positive and negative. So, as I said already, modern problems require modern solutions

While it's true that if the transaction is valid, it will be confirmed. But it's at the protocol level.
In the real world, I'm afraid the dynamic is a lot more complicated than that. BTC tx can be traced, and to cash out a lot of money, it's difficult to move a pile load of cash with no one notice (yes, they still need to cash out). Thus, for small scale terrorists, maybe they still can use BTC, but for the whales, it is as painful as other methods (or perhaps more painful). It helps small scale criminals/terrorist the same as they use cash. So no, BTC isn't helping terrorists.

At the end of the day bitcoin is just a tool and it is up to the person to decide what they will do with that tool, they can do something constructive or they can do something destructive, it is a mistake to blame the tool for the bad uses that people give to it but that is precisely what we are going to see as bitcoin becomes more popular and banks become more aware of the risk that bitcoin represents to them and will use this as a way to scare people away from this market.

I think the situation further exposes the use of blockchain and how it secures our funds from third parties. This is just a matter of third party security which is financial sovereignty. Although what we see is the reality of third party intrusion with fiat. This is just the way we get our bank account frozen by the banks for a little verification that the bank is requiring but will block off a customer. It is clear that is a sanction coming down to troubled countries that America didn't succeed on and thinking ahead this action can turn out as disguise for more countries to begin adopting cryptocreency to avoid centralised intrusion.

Just like you have said nothing can be 100% perfect. When there is an advantage to something there is always going to be a disadvantage to it as well. Bitcoin is good and we all like it because of the privacy it gives to us and also the control over our  wealth. Now as far as there are people who wants to make use of Bitcoin just for the good of it, There is also going to be those who wants to make use of it the wrong way. So the question is, are we going to get rid of it just because it has a disadvantage? or do we find a solution to it?

This is something that has been discussed a lot of times and that’s also been one of the points that is used by some economists against Bitcoin; they believe that there is going to be terrorists who are making use of Bitcoin as a mode of transaction, although there haven’t been much cases like this, and we wish not to see it happen.

That's true, and I'm sure sooner or later we will not hear this "crypto helping terrorists" nonsense in the most countries. In fact, Bitcoin is surely more convenient for the law enforcement agencies for tracing terrorists than fiat with their sophisticated schemes evolved like deadly viruses with time. Bitcoin was created as an alternative currency, but also a better one in many aspects, including tracing terrorists, corrupt high level officials, and other scoundrels.

OK.. let me analyze your post once again, but I really doubt I would ever agree to your views.


You want a financial system that can be blocked and sanctioned. Essentially you want a centralized system, which can be abused by the government for whatever way they want. Such a system have failed in the past.  And although it is the ultimate wet dream of every socialist, I can't agree to such a system.

Just because 0.1% of the Bitcoin transactions are used by criminals, it is ridiculous to blame the entire cryptocurrency community for that. For criminals, the preferred mode of payment is fiat currency and despite the fact that fiat transactions can be "blocked" and "sanctioned", the usage of fiat for such operations is growing with every passing year. So what does this mean?

The solution is not to use a system that is completely under the control of the government, but to increase the efficiency of the law enforcement department. They are just giving out excuses, to hide their own failure.

It is so much more in fiat then bitcoin, that's true. Bad people use tons more in fiat then they use in bitcoin, bitcoin is probably just the low level drug dealer that sells weed on darknet and that's about it, the transaction is done in bitcoin or some other coin like monero, and then they send the product after the buyer sends the coins, then dealer sends the drugs and it's done.

This is a very very small time amount compared to all the bad people out there dealing in millions of dollars every day, there are billionaire bad people in the world, none of them uses crypto. Long story short they should fix the fiat world helping the criminals before they start to bark about how crypto helps the criminals or gives them a way out, because even though it is anonymous it is not untraceable and that means if there is a bad guy eventually you will catch them.

Agree with this. Because even when Islamic State was at it's peak dominance in Iraq/Syria, there were zero reports of them using cryptocurrency. It is no secret that Bitcoin is used (to some extent) in drugs trade (especially using dark markets). But terrorists using Bitcoin is just another fairytale being spread by the lefties who want to destroy the cryptocurrency sector. And if by any chance the terrorists are using Bitcoin, then it is the fault of the government. Bitcoin was not specifically designed to help terrorists or criminals.

This is how smart Bitcoin haters are, they provide inaccurate information and mislead a lot of people. Bitcoin will always get accused of helping
terrorists, maybe because Bitcoin is decentralized and the government can't control it, then raise the accusation that Bitcoin is widely used for
illegal activities. Though if we do the research properly, and get information from reliable sources, will find the fact that the number of terrorists
who use fiat far more. Because terrorists existed before 2009, when there was no Bitcoin, that many terrorists use to carry out illegal activities is fiat.
So it's actually not true with the information that says Bitcoin helps terrorists. There are indeed some terrorists who use Bitcoin, but very few of
them. Many terrorists until now use fiat more for their illegal activities.

That's the best part about bitcoin that people miss. They talk about how terrorists use it like there were no terrorists before 2009, they talk about criminals using it and there were criminals before 2009, they talk about money laundering, blackmailing, hacking, many bad things all acting like it wasn't a thing before 2009. Honestly crypto has been around for years and it has been accused of all these things forever when in reality fiat has been the main thing for that in a long time.

There was a gossip (not sure if it is real) about how most 20 dollar bills have cocaine trace in them, think about how much that money actually is and you will realize how much dark money is in fiat as well. Long story short bitcoin is not the main source of problems governments are having and it is not the only thing that bad people use, even if bitcoin stop existing today, bad people will find another way anyway.

Maybe calm down, take a deep breath, then re-read my post in full and make a special point to read for comprehension this time.  When you do, take particular note that I didn't say anything about the Taliban using bitcoin.  I'm addressing two separate points in the OP, which is easy to tell because I separated the two points into two separate paragraphs.  You worked yourself into a tizzy for no reason.  Next time you respond to something I write, make sure it's actually on topic.

I am not surprised by the rants from left-wing that government should control all the financial activities and there should be no anonymity. The argument is that anonymous modes of payments are being used for terror financing, and for criminal activities. But apart from these "assumptions", I am 100% sure that you don't have any concrete proof with you to link Bitcoin with Taliban. To date, there hasn't been a single incident which links the Taliban to cryptocurrency. Your argument is based on just assumptions and not real data. Taliban gets close to 100% of their funds in the form of fiat. But obviously, you don't want to focus on that part.

Remember that the motive of creating Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto is to make transactions less stressful and easier by avoiding exorbitant fees being charged by third parties service providers. It will be difficult for government to get hold of money in form of Bitcoin than just using ordinary Fiat.

Everything that has advantages also have it's own disadvantages which is the reason why many persons are still castigating the use of Bitcoin as a method of payment because of people are using it to scam innocent persons violating the objects of it's development.

Yes, obviously and unequivocally any financial system that cannot be blocked or sanctioned provides safe haven for terrorists and other bad actors to facilitate their illegal and harmful actions. There are people on these boards who instead of acknowledging reality get angry when you state this obvious fact. The inability to acknowledge reality disqualifies all their other opinions, as they’ve proven themselves too partisan and to irrational to be taken seriously.

And no need to equivocate. The Taliban is 100% a terrorist organization, as much now as it was before they were overthrown by the western allies.

Generally, yes. Although, there are videos circulating around with the Taliban with stacks of USD filling up entire rooms because the military left it all behind. Think the Taliban is going to be using that instead of Bitcoin. So fiat currencies and traditional banking institutions can help terrorist networks too, but there is never really too much talk about that. Bad actors will and can take advantage of decentralization, that doesn't negative crypto because it literally applies to any fiat based currency.

There are even concrete evidence that suggest the USA themselves have funded the Mujahids in Afghanistan to fight against rising Soviet power, if there was bitcoin at that point in time, things would have come out more easily as a clear trail could be established of where the money goes, It's quite easy to say that Terrorists are using cryptocurrencies to make transactions but the thing is money has to originate from someplace or the other, Terrorists would use cash if not bitcoin, that is even difficult to trace or establish any trails, In fact cryptocurrencies would help in finding the root of this money because it's clearly not impossible to trace out the person from the address.

It is a reason, but it is not a valid one by the stretch of any imagination, it's just a means or an excuse rather for the government to continue it's hostility towards Bitcoin, if we're to be honest here, the only problem the government have with Bitcoin is that they cannot control it, they can't print it how they like, or freeze it's users account, or generally do all they can with their fiat currencies, that's just what the problem is, it's not cause "terrorists can possibly use it freely" or all other conspiracy theories they come up with.

I think the government need to understand something and that is the fact that Bitcoin is a currency and there is no way to stop whoever wants to use it from doing so, neither does it make it a currency that we should do away with, if we're to look at it that way, the use of Fiat should also be stopped considering all the atrocious activities that has been carried out with it. Bitcoin isn't helping terrorists per se, it's a decentralized currency that helps individuals to maintain their privacy and be free from government controlling their finances arbitrarily.

While I do understand that BTCs were somehow linked or associated in the past as an avenue to purchase prohibited or contraband items, I think this is not the case this time in Afghanistan. With the country being somehow frozen with their assets, they lack the necessary stronghold and infrastructure to support a widespread implementation of BTCs on their country.

Money is indeed power- one with the most resources can definitely take the tide of the battle. But in this case where the Taliban has control of the country, their problem would be funding (though China has expressed their terms into helping them).

because this is a platform that can be accessed by everyone whether it's ordinary people, influential people such as influencers, people involved in politics and even terrorists. bitcoin can be done and accessed by everyone because here there are no restrictions or prohibitions for certain people (except government policies that prohibit).
but with your thread I just realized with this why paper money, gold and oil are also not applied the same thing as bitcoin (a tool for terrorists) even though it is true that this is also used for terrorists and even fighting for oil in Arab countries is still has something to do with terrorists, then why not say the same thing as they say that bitcoin is access to make it easier for terrorists? I just realized this.

The government is where the manpower is but their search also seems to be fruitless for the scammers, quite a few crypto lawsuits have been stored in police offices under the directory name of pending, I think the most recent victims have also been powerless before their lawsuits, looking for the police is just to sow hope and scare some scammers. But most terrorists probably give up this technology option, they direct the funds directly to their accounts under the security policies of international banks, a legitimate account is better than collecting and swapping bitcoin

That's the reason for some governments and organizations to stay against bitcoin. the whole point is the paper money can be used by terrorists too. they were using paper money before 2009 and none said paper money is the tool for terrorists, they even used oil and gold for the large trades and none said anything negative regarding these famous assets. Bitcoin is an asset and a tool and can be used by different people for different things sometimes there are millions of dollars of anonymous donations by bitcoin to a charity and sometimes there is a transaction done by the terrorists by bitcoin.

The fact that funds can't be blocked in a way that banks accounts can be frozen is potentially helping terrorists, but as others mentioned in this thread, there are things to take into account here (the need to exchange fiat for BTC to actually use it most of the time; private keys). Also, if using Bitcoin were so simple and so much more convenient, wouldn't all terrorists prefer Bitcoin by now? Apart from that, even if it makes things easier for terrorists, it's not a good enough reason to abandon cryptos altogether, IMO.

What can we do, we wanted a decentralized platform and the people that have malicious intent find a way to use it tho their malicious purposes. But for some terrorists, I don't think that they'll be using it though, bitcoin is easily traced if you have the manpower and equipment and dedication.

Bitcoin resources will help terrorists but they will not be able to make real use of it because bitcoin is not in circulation in all countries of the world and needs to be converted into fiat currency. Bitcoin transfer all transactions in an anonymous way thus the use of bitcoin by criminals is actually more risky than conventional methods, such as cash in hand transfer. Believes that the bitcoin blockchain is now being monitored more closely for illegal transactions than the banking system but it is difficult to criminalize kyc 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?!

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.

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


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.

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.

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?) 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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


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.

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.

I don't think so, they have to find a way to make use of that and they can't be out and about in public since they're a terrorist after all. Also, the cyber warfare against terrorist is pretty easy to be solved because they don't have that much access to advanced computers or have some update on how to use crypto since they're in constant hiding.

Agree, the fact is that this is only about the element of freedom of a country that does not want interference from other parties where the country is based on certain bases that have been passed down from generation to generation.

For example, Afghanistan is fighting drugs, but the proceeds of their weapons are obtained from buying and selling drugs between countries both in Asia and for countries in the Middle East. Isn't payment revenue using crypto transactions like XMR as an alternative to cover the openness of the Afghan group. Because there is a thread about the Afghan economy to which I am responding actually the United States is suffering a huge loss https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.57821696
The US is wasting too much time pursuing overseas economies as if it has the goal of draining resources in the rich Middle East.

I feel like that's an aspect that is often overlooked when it comes to the "Bitcoin funds terrorism" narrative. Unless the Taliban is running a mining operation or doing bounties / sig campaigns on Bitcointalk, Bitcoin isn't used to fund anything.

Generally I find it weird to put the onus on a currency. If the problem is terrorists buying weapons, maybe prevent the inflow of weapons. I find it hard to believe that the flow of weapons is harder to control than the flow of currency. Unless, of course, there's a conflict of interest involved.

If Bitcoin were so good at creating anonymous transactions then it would be used by all terrorists in the world, and by that logic there would be a lot more terrorism in the world than 10 years ago - but we all know that is not the case. The US has a very big problem at the moment, the fight against terror must continue, but against whom to fight if there are no terrorists?

Bringing Bitcoin into any serious connection with terrorism is an already worn-out story that makes sense just as much as meaningless accusations that Bitcoin is destroying the environment - it all comes down to the agenda "don't use Bitcoin because you help terrorists and because you'll stay in the dark".

That's what I thought too but there's also the possibility that they're going to go that route even though it's a bit advanced for some of them, I mean it's not like bitcoin's the only one that they can use to transfer funds right and it's much safer for the arms dealer because they don't have to be there physically and they can just send a representative to oversee the exchange.

I think so but the authorities can easily identify those who use bitcoin to fund terrorism campaigns. Also, it's unlikely for them to use it anyways, I mean their arms dealer will probably want fiat rather than a cryptocurrency being paid for their Assault Rifles and RPGs.

Why would a government(even the government of Afghanistan) hold financial assets in the form of cryptocurrencies?No country in the world has cryptocurrency reserves,even El Salvador doesn't have crypto reserves.
The previous regime in Afghanistan was totally financially dependable of the USA.It's pretty normal for the USA to block the bank accounts and the financial streams heading towards Afghanistan,since the old regime doesn't exist anymore.
So far,I have never seen any good evidence that terrorists are using Bitcoin...

Just change that illegal activities to  immoral activities and you may discover the hypocrisy.

And it will be much easier if you stick to the Terrorist activity rather than Illegal activity on the discussion so we don't deviate too much from the topic.

If you consider the definition of terrorism you will know it would be much easier for terrorist to use physical currency or hide behind the opaque nature of digital fiat to perpetuate their evil. And it will be much easier for security agency to track/deal with terrorist funds on Bitcoin Network than on fiat systems.

Bitcoin transactions from terrorists could actually be blocked by services and users if they could take advantage of its Network Transparency to isolate coins owned by them.  We don't want a situation where the power given to the people in position of authority on the Bitcoin Network is abused, just as you can't give them that power to control precious metals and other natural resources like Gold. It will be mercilessly abuse.

We can call that terrorist is stupid and doesn't have enough knowledge about privacy concern.

It almost impossible to track the coins belongs to after it already cleaned with a mixer if you use >1 inputs and send to multiple address, because no one know which address you got your coins from.

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To answer this question, it depends on how you view about Bitcoin is.
Does Bitcoin has a value? Yes
Does Bitcoin solve centralized control (e.g. freeze funds, slow transaction)? Yes
Does Bitcoin can be used for charity program? Yes
Does Bitcoin help scammer and fraudster? Yes
It's double edged sword and there's no end of this discussion since both of them is true.

Bitcoin will not appear in your wallet out of thin air, you need to use legal currency for exchange.
When funds have been blocked, it is impossible to use legal currency to exchange bitcoins.
  Bitcoin transactions are recorded on the public chain and can be viewed by anyone.

You are wrong. As it was said by @arallmuus above:


So, in this particular case new government wouldn't have access to the money unless the old government wanted to grant it.


This is so true, and we can only hope that governments have good advisors and they listen to them instead of forming their opinions under the influence of stupid articles and news videos.

And plenty of other currencies as well.  The US doesn't have the criminal market cornered by any means.

They're a terrorist organization by pretty much anyone's standards, so I'll make that statement for you.

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.

But they can track it no? Though the effectiveness is still questionable since mixers are a thing, crypto assets could still plainly be seen as to where they would go, and the assets would still need to be converted to fiat since most businesses don't even know what Bitcoin is, let alone accept them. Besides in this case, the opposite could be said as well right? Having too much control over the assets of a country, being able to block them just by presenting the public a "reasonable" excuse, then they could freeze assets of various powers.

Do you really think country like Afghan where there is no chance of survival at this movement and water bottle costs you $40, will have infra-structure to run the crypto market? If they fund their terror activities in the form of BTC then we would have known that by this time considering from which network the transaction is getting pinged. These kinda activities will need millions to billions dollars to be moved in the form of BTC and this can be traced easily due to the amount of money that is involved within the block. I am not crucifying anything here, but I literally see anyone knowledgeable in the Taliban to use BTC and perform such activities whatsoever. So there is no question of blocking the asset like bitcoin because it's not there thing.

 If they are anyways doing the terror activities they won't fear to openly send and receive the money in USD format.

You're right to say that they're terrorists, aren't they part of Al-Qaida? Plus it's not like you see groups of peaceful Muslims wear suicide vests in a public place to preach the name of Allah. I think yes it can somewhat help the terrorists since there's no way that bitcoin can be stopped and don't even start saying that they can't because that's an ignorant statement to say in the first place.

There is no system that is 100% perfect and Bitcoin does not aim to be. However on the issue of self sovereignty, who should be given the moral and legal justification to control the finances of others? And what earned then that liberty?

Banks were created cause keeping money under your bed was not feasible, but with the bank and state being virtually inseparable, how does one limit the influence of the government in their finances and do they need to? I'll answer, Yes. The level of government interference should be kept at a certain level as they have long used it as a tool to control the populace.

Fiat currencies is still the most common means of funding terrorism and scams, so there's already an existing problem there, Bitcoin beinbmore like fiat would not solve that.

Super power do not like to be blocked, large nations have demand for unblock-able funding

I don't know about helping terrorists.

But I imagine afghans fleeing the taliban will have trouble buying a plane ticket, bus ticket or fuel to escape the taliban with their funds frozen. Americans as well, who may have sought to leave the country. Could have a hard time doing so with afghan government funds frozen. If anything the move is likely crippling efforts of the kabul administration being overrun. Than it is doing anything to hamper the taliban.

Withdrawing US troops abandoning afghanistan left behind so much free equipment, weapons and vehicles for the taliban to acquire for free. I don't know if anyone will take the "fighting terrorism" narrative seriously any longer.

Ownership and sovereignty of money could become hot topics in the future. Is it your money, do you truly own it, if foreign nations can remotely freeze your assets? There could be a good discussion to be had there.

You might want to put in reference news so people can read detailed information about it. According to Bloomberg, US froze assets that belongs to the previous Afghan government to prevent the current Taliban government from accessing it. It wasnt stated in the source but probably it was requested by the previous goverment?

Source : Bloomberg

If those assets were held in cryptocurrencies, it would also helps prevent the current government from accessing it if the previous government still holds the private key to it. Its still way better than being frozen by other country though

I assume those were federal reserve bonds that countries can hold? If so the same storage mechanism will probabky be used with bitcoin.

If bitcoin becomes like a gold would the US, EU and India not seem like trustworthy resources for housing nations' gold?
Terrorist organisations might get help from certain other countries also in storing gold securely so the same could still happen with that.

A system that allows people to block anyone gives the blocker too much power anyway imo.

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.