The House Financial Services Committee had a hearing this morning entitled “Dollars against Democracy”—a comprehensive look at how domestic terrorist organizations get their funding—and cryptocurrency was front of mind.
Last month, crypto research company Chainalysis determined that some of the white nationalists and far-right extremists involved in the Capitol riot received large amounts of cryptocurrency in the weeks leading up to the attack. Today’s hearing was, in part, an attempt to learn more about what Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA-8) called a “double-edged sword”—the idea that cryptocurrencies can be both genuinely useful financial instruments and dangerous tools for terrorists and money launderers.
