Crypto Is a Small Slice of Hamas’ Funding — But It’s Deadly
Regulators are rightly cracking down on virtual currency.
Israelis light candles in memory of the victims of an attack by Hamas militants on Israel on October 7.
Photographer: AHMAD GHARABLI/AFPAs lawyers and prosecutors rake over the ashes of Sam Bankman-Fried’s fallen FTX cryptocurrency empire, another reckoning for digital currencies is underway: Governments around the world are intensifying their crackdown on sources of funding for terrorist groups — including crypto — after Hamas’s bloody attack in Israel that claimed more than 1,400 lives and led to retaliatory attacks that have killed thousands.
Crypto is a small but deadly slice of overall terrorism funding: Research by analytics firm Elliptic in 2021 estimated that wallets linked to Hamas’ military wing had received more than $7.3 million in crypto, including around $40,000 in Dogecoin, the dog-themed memecoin favored by Elon Musk. These sums aren’t much compared with the $100 million that Iran sends annually to Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups or with Qatar’s $360 million in aid for Gaza, or the approximately $300 million Hamas gets via business taxation and extortion estimated by the Washington Institute’s Matthew Levitt. But small amounts can make a difference in an era of low-cost, low-tech attacks. An estimate of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by the New York Times found they cost Al-Qaeda half a million dollars but cost the US $3.3 trillion.