The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has partially corrected an article that mischaracterized the extent to which Hamas and other militant groups fund their terrorist activities with cryptocurrencies.
The article published on October 10 — titled “Hamas militants behind Israeli attack collect millions in cryptocurrencies” — cited blockchain forensics firm Elliptic to say that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a terrorist organization operating in the Gaza Strip, collected as many as 93 One million dollars between August 2021 and June 2023.
In the aforementioned report, Elliptic said that the Israeli counter-terrorism unit confiscated wallets linked to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which received $93 million during this time frame. However, Elliptic clarified that this in no way means that PIJ collected this money to finance its terrorist activities.
Research by blockchain forensics firm Chainalogy suggests that only $450,000 of these funds were sent to a known terrorism-linked wallet.
In a correction, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Lebanese political party Hezbollah “may have exchanged” up to $12 million in cryptocurrencies — far less than the initial figure of $93 million.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah may have exchanged as much as $12 million in cryptocurrencies since 2021, according to cryptocurrency research firm Elliptic. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that PIJ had sent more than $12 million in cryptocurrencies to Hezbollah since 2021, the Wall Street Journal said.
The Wall Street Journal said it has updated other parts of the article to include “additional context” about Elliptic’s research.
The WSJ’s retraction comes after an October 25 statement from Elliptic that called on the WSJ to correct its misinterpretation of the data. Elliptic added that Hamas’ funding with cryptocurrencies remains “miniscule” compared to other funding sources.
On October 27, Elliptic was “pleased” to see the WSJ acknowledge its errors but said it would have liked the WSJ to be more specific about its corrections.
We are happy to see the Wall Street Journal issue some corrections to its article based on our comments. Although we would like to see them go further, we will continue to engage constructively.
– Elliptical (@elliptical) October 27, 2023
Related: Elizabeth Warren is using Hamas as her latest scapegoat in the war on cryptocurrencies
Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, also noted that the WSJ’s opening paragraph is still framed as if cryptocurrency was the primary funding source behind Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.
2/ @Wall Street JournalThe introduction still asserts that funding to support Hamas attacks depends on “one answer: cryptocurrency.” There is no evidence of this, the Wall Street Journal knows it. pic.twitter.com/BQK80b1jMd
– paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) October 27, 2023
“This is hardly a correction,” he added.
Castle Island Ventures partner Nick Carter and others are calling on US Senator Elizabeth Warren to withdraw a related letter backed by more than 100 US lawmakers who wrote to the White House on October 17.
The letter cited misinterpreted Wall Street Journal data from Elliptic in an attempt to argue that cryptocurrency poses a “national security threat” to the United States and that Congress and the Biden administration must act quickly before cryptocurrencies are used to finance another “tragedy.”
Liz Warren Wade? pic.twitter.com/e0Ew2TQzRb
– Nick Carter (@nic__carter) October 27, 2023
magazine: US law enforcement agencies are stepping up efforts to combat cryptocurrency-related crimes