Michael Morrell, the former acting director of CIA published an independent paper commissioned by Crypto Council for Innovation refuting the long told narrative about bitcoin and crypto use in illicit activities. Morrell in his research found that the fear-mongering around crypto propagated by government officials like Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen does not hold any ground when put to test.
In fact, contrary to what these government officials warn people, the use of Bitcoin for illicit activities has been on a continuous decline, Morrell in an interview with Forbes said,
“just the opposite, that [bitcoin and crypto] weren’t rife with illicit activity. In fact, there was probably less illicit activity in the Bitcoin ecosystem than there is in the traditional banking system.”
Crypto Forensic and Analytic Firms Reason Behind Declining Illegal Use
Morrell also lauded the technology improvements of crypto analytical firms such as Chainalysis, CipherTrace which has made it extremely difficult for scammers and hackers to cash out stolen funds or use them for illicit activities without being tracked down. He insisted that government officials holding such a high position in office should not be a part of fear-mongering and work towards better regulations to compete with China’s growing influence in the digital asset space.
The former CIA director also suggested that the US officials should not waste their time and resources on suppressing Bitcoin use, rather focus on leveraging Bitcoin and blockchain for the greater good. He explained,
“we need to make sure that the conventional wisdom that is wrong about the illicit use of Bitcoin doesn’t hold us back from pushing forward the technological changes that are going to allow us to keep pace with China.”
Apart from Morell SEC commissioner Hester Peirce also known as “Crypto Mom” because of her in-depth understanding of crypto space has recently commented that banning bitcoin is not an option and suggested the only way to ban bitcoin is to shut down the internet. She said,
“I think we were past that point very early on because you’d have to shut down the Internet. I don’t see how you could ban it. You could certainly make the effort. It would be very hard to stop people from [trading Bitcoin]. So I think it would be a foolish thing for the government to try to do that.”
