While regulators and policymakers dither and try to decide if cryptocurrencies have a future in the economy, early adopters, including terrorists and violent extremists, are exploiting a law enforcement blind spot. The ease by which money laundering and terrorism financing take place with cryptocurrencies and the more dangerous privacy coins are becoming a security threat of our own making through bureaucratic inaction.
The recent indictment of a New York woman accused of sending funds to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham — designated by the United States and United Nations as a Foreign Terrorist Organization — is newsworthy because it’s the exception, not the rule. But this does not necessarily mean that financing terrorism with cryptocurrencies is itself a rare event. Rather, the few prosecutions that have been announced reflect the limitations of law enforcement’s capabilities in the United States and around the world — a problem that can and should be solved.