Here was the headline from a Wall Street Journal article I came across today: Most Popular Cryptocurrency Keeps showing up in Illicit Finance. The article can be found here: https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/most-popular-cryptocurrency-keeps-showing-up-in-illicit-finance-71d32e5e
Here is another article: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/10/26/us-senates-banking-chairman-says-panel-to-crack-down-on-cryptos-terrorism-ties/ talking about the United States Banking Chairman indicated they are going to crack down on cryptocurrency and it's ties to terrorism.
I am not opposed to talking about this, as I find it distressing that something that I have learned to find valuable being used to fund harm to others. I am not opposed to "cracking down" on the use of cryptocurrency to fund harm to others. I am in favor of it actually.
Why I titled my article the way I did was about how it was psychologically manipulative to talk about cryptocurrency in the way the headlines suggest. Cryptocurrency is tied to terrorism. That is not true in the way it was presented. yes, there seems to be proof that cryptocurrency has been used to fund harm to others. The issue that I find in this line of presenting information is it does not admit that fiat currency is also used to fund terrorism.
I think better reporting to not directly call out and misrepresent cryptocurrency would be appropriate. If the article indicated fiat currency already has mechanisms in place to stop funding terrorism when the use of fiat currency funding terrorism is identified, that would be appropriate. To me it comes across as "crypto bad" and I find that problematic. Yes, I agree and have written about how the cryptocurrency space needs to weed out the fraudsters and criminals. I just think honest reporting can be done to not inherently make cryptocurrency look bad without writing out the discrepancies and differences in a more honest manner.
If we can rid the world of wrongdoers so to speak that would be good. However, we can never really get rid of people who want to harm others, what we can do is work together, using fiat and cryptocurrency to help aid in good in this world. Putting down one form of currency is not appropriate and misses the point!
