US Congressman Tom Emmer stated in a post that today, I asked the Treasury Secretary of FinCEN and OFAC about The Wall Street Journal's report on Hamas' digital asset fundraising activities. Deputy Secretary of State Nelson publicly confirmed that The Wall Street Journal's data is inaccurate, and cryptocurrency is not even a popular tool for Hamas terrorists.

Families of hostages and victims of Hamas in Israel have filed a lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange Binance, alleging that it processed transactions associated with the terrorist group and others operating in the region. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York on behalf of U.S. citizens who were affected by acts of terror perpetrated by Hamas and other groups in Israel. The plaintiffs are also suing Iran and Syria. Binance is accused of facilitating the financing of Hamas and other terrorist organizations between 2017 and 2023, and providing a clandestine financing tool that it deliberately hid from U.S. regulators. More than 100 Binance accounts with suspected links to Hamas were frozen at the request of Israeli law enforcement in the 10 days following the attacks.

Lawmakers have written to U.S. President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen requesting information on the extent to which Hamas is using cryptocurrency to raise funds. The letter cites concerns raised by recent reporting and blog posts from crypto analytics firms, but notes that the scale of the problem is unclear. The lawmakers have called for a better understanding of the size and scope of Hamas's digital asset operations, as well as the success of U.S. efforts to seize illicit digital assets. The letter was signed by over 50 House representatives, mostly Republicans, and comes ahead of a hearing on illicit activity in digital assets.

A cryptocurrency advocacy organization based in the United States is opposing Senator Elizabeth Warren and other lawmakers who are linking cryptocurrency to terrorism. Earlier, Warren and more than 100 lawmakers signed a letter calling for the suppression of illegal cryptocurrency activities, claiming that these activities are used to fund Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization. Aya Fanusie, the director of anti-money laundering at the Cryptocurrency Innovation Committee, said that Warren's proposed solutions to some of these issues cannot address problems that occur outside the jurisdiction of the US judiciary. The Blockchain Association and the Cryptocurrency Innovation Committee stated that the terrorist organization Hamas has reduced its use of Bitcoin because authorities can more easily track funds.

The Wall Street Journal recently published a report claiming that Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups had raised $41 million in crypto between August 2020 and June 2021. The report suggested that crypto was being used to finance terrorist operations and that law enforcement was struggling to contain the flows. However, Yaya Fanusie, a former CIA staffer who has been tracking crypto financing of terrorism since 2016, argued that crypto is far from a golden ticket for groups wanting to raise money secretly. He noted that the public nature of public blockchains, exchanges, and wallet addresses opens up terrorist financing to scrutiny.