According to Cointelegraph, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has partially corrected an article that mischaracterized the extent to which Hamas and other militant groups have been funding their terrorism activities with cryptocurrencies. The original article, published on October 10, cited blockchain forensics firm Elliptic to claim that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) raised as much as $93 million between August 2021 and June 2023. However, Elliptic clarified that this did not mean PIJ raised these funds specifically for terrorism activities. Research from blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis suggests only $450,000 of these funds were sent to a known terrorism-affiliated wallet.
In WSJ's correction, it stated that PIJ and Lebanese political party Hezbollah may have exchanged up to $12 million in cryptocurrency since 2021, a significantly lower figure than the initial $93 million. The WSJ also updated other parts of the article to include additional context about Elliptic's research. This retraction follows an October 25 statement by Elliptic, which called on WSJ to correct its misinterpretation of the data. Elliptic added that cryptocurrency funding by Hamas remains tiny compared to other funding sources.
Despite the corrections, some critics, including Coinbase's chief legal officer Paul Grewal, argue that WSJ's opening paragraph still frames cryptocurrency as the primary funding source behind Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel. Additionally, some are calling on US Senator Elizabeth Warren to retract a related letter backed by over 100 US lawmakers, which cited WSJ's misinterpreted data from Elliptic to argue that cryptocurrency poses a national security threat to the US.
