Pride or Propaganda?
I don't think anyone really knows for sure why the Wall Street Journal hasn't fixed an enormous mistake in its reporting. But the longer this goes on, the biggest loser is the publication.
Digital-currency wallets that Israeli authorities linked to the PIJ received as much as $93 million in crypto between August 2021 and June this year, analysis by leading crypto researcher Elliptic showed. Wallets connected to Hamas received about $41 million over a similar time period, according to research by another crypto analytics and software firm, Tel Aviv-based BitOK.
This is from a Wall Street Journal piece titled “Hamas Militants Behind Israel Attack Raised Millions in Crypto” that was published roughly two weeks ago. It quickly made the rounds in both crypto and political circles and crypto-antagonist Elizabeth Warren wasted no time taking the opportunity to mobilize her anti-crypto army with a letter to Joey Ice-Cream demanding… I’m not sure what exactly:
Congress and this Administration must take strong action to thoroughly address crypto illicit finance risks before it can be used to finance another tragedy
She’s certainly not beating around the bush here. According to Liz, who is marvelously playing the role of wolf in sheep’s clothing regarding her anti-bankster persona publicly, crypto is now to blame for Russia evading financial sanctions, the fentanyl crisis in America, and Hamas attacking Israel.
I could go all ‘US dollars are used in crime far more than crypto’ here in an attempt to defend the broader crypto industry but I won’t. I’ve gone that route before and I don’t need to do it again. The argument that I’d be making is that if a politician wants to move to ban crypto because it’s used in crime than that same politician should move to ban cash as well. But nobody wants that, nor should they.
Here’s the thing though, I don’t even need to go with that argument to combat the WSJ piece because the claim has been fact-checked by leading blockchain analyst organization Chainalysis and it turns out it isn’t just not true, it’s egregiously not true. According to that firm, the crypto-generated terror funding estimates from Elliptic and BitOK are making the assumption that a service-provider’s address belongs to terrorists even though it doesn’t:
This address processed over 1,300 deposits and 1,200 withdrawals in 7.5 months. Of the roughly $82 million in cryptocurrency received by this address, about $450,000 worth of funds were transferred from the known terror-affiliated wallet. Given the activity of this address, the person or group of people controlling it is likely not the same person that controls the terror-affiliated wallet, but is rather a service provider that knowingly or unknowingly facilitated the terror financing activity.
What?? So it’s actually not tens of millions in crypto terror financing? Just $450k you say? Well… that’s just the opinion of one research firm, right? Surely Elliptic and BitOK outnumber Chainalysis, right? RIGHT?!
From a new Elliptic note published earlier today:
Over the past two weeks, politicians and journalists have portrayed public crypto fundraising as a significant source of funds for Hamas and other terrorist groups, but the data simply does not support this.
The company further detailed how it has reached out to both the Wall Street Journal for a correction and Elizabeth Warren’s office to clarify what the data actually says.
Look, I don’t expect anything from Warren. She’s a politician and they’re not generally held accountable for being awful by their voters. Such is life. Massachusetts, you should try to do better but that’s perhaps a conversation for a different day. Somewhat stunningly though, not only has the Wall Street Journal not published a correction or a retraction, but one of the reporters on the original WSJ article byline appears to be both digging in and melting down in philosophical quote-form rather than just admitting the mistake and moving on:
Fascinating.
Look, I get it. It sucks getting stuff wrong. I’ve been there - not quite to this scale - but I do understand how this could be an honest mistake. But at some point, Talley’s colleagues need to talk some sense into this guy. The damage he and the publication are doing to themselves by not updating the article with the new context (at absolute minimum) is difficult to comprehend.
Honestly, I feel a full retraction article is more appropriate. But I’m not holding my breath for that. But I have to imagine at some point we’ll get a quiet update to the original piece of some sort. But the longer it takes to get that, the worse this is going to be.
And getting back to the political angle of this for a moment; this little call to action letter from Warren to the president looks totally ridiculous in hindsight. Now internalize that over 100 people in Congress signed this stupid thing. These people have absolutely no idea what they’re doing or what they’re talking about pertaining to crypto and many of these signees are on finance committees.
Imagine what else they don’t know.
Shout out to Nic Carter who is the pit bull this industry needs.