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There was a story across the interwebs last week all about the Hamas terrorist organisation telling their followers and fans not to send them Bitcoin anymore [1].
I saw a few comments around the Lightning/BTC Maxi world expressing doubt about this story and its sourcing.
And I agree with the general idea of treating almost everything in the M5M with severe skepticism. I am especially suspicious of Reuters and AP for personal reasons.
So I did my own digging to find the actual source of this information and with a quiet DM to a native Arabic speaking friend who watches these channels closely, I was given a link to the specific Telegram group where this announcement was made.
تصريح صادر عن:
...:: كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام ::...تتقدم كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام من جماهير شعبنا وأمتنا العربية والإسلامية وأحرار العالم بخالص الشكر والتقدير؛ على دعمهم المادي المتواصل للمقاومة الفلسطينية ووقوفهم إلى جانبها في مختلف المراحل، ونسأل الله أن يجعل جهادهم بمالهم في موازين حسناتهم وأن يعظم لهم الأجور، وفي هذا الإطار تعلن كتائب القسام عن وقف استقبال التبرعات المالية من خلال عملة البيتكوين الرقمية؛ حرصاً منها على سلامة المتبرعين وعدم تعرضهم لأي ضرر لا سيما في ظل اشتداد الملاحقة ومضاعفة الجهد المعادي ضد كل من يحاول دعم المقاومة من خلال هذه العملة، فيما ندعوهم لاستمرار التبرع للقسام بمختلف الطرق المتاحة..
And in case your Arabic needs some work, here's the Chat GPT translation (I will point out that I asked it to improve the quality of the English):
Statement issued by:
...:: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades ::..."The Al-Qassam Brigades would like to express their deep gratitude and appreciation to the people of Palestine, our Arab and Islamic nation, and the free people of the world for their ongoing financial support of the Palestinian resistance and for standing with us throughout various stages. We pray that God will consider their support a form of jihad, leading to great rewards in the afterlife.
In this regard, the Al-Qassam Brigades announce that they will no longer be accepting financial donations via the digital Bitcoin currency, as they want to ensure the safety of donors and prevent them from any harm, particularly given the increased pursuit and hostile efforts against those who attempt to support the resistance through this currency. We urge supporters to continue to donate to Al-Qassam using other available methods."
Not Anti-Bitcoin FUD
So it is quite clear this wasn't a made up story to spread anti-Bitcoin FUD by linking Bitcoin to terrorists. In fact it's kind of the opposite: the terrorists are de-linking themselves from Bitcoin!
There are ways they could improve their Bitcoin privacy but I certainly won't be spelling them out here. Though of course there's always ChatGPT...
Thanks Twitter
Just a little footnote on the value of Twitter. I'm connected to people who can dig this kind of thing up mostly because of Twitter. I always knew that my brianoflondon account had a valuable network and I guess in the year I was without it, I sort of forgot that. As much as I hate the fact that the account is not mine, it's just rented, I can't deny that it is valuable to me.
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This story is kind of suspicious and surprising because at first I wonder who are the people sending bitcoin to the terrorist.
Although I don't know if al-Qassam is terrorist or not, if they are a terrorist group, donating them in digital currency or directly is actually illegal.
As crypto is widely used in the black market and illegal activities due to its decentralized nature, these news create FUD very easily. So a deep research should be done before reaching to any conclusion.
This is pretty interesting as if in the beginning crypto was seen as a way to hide revenue and earnings, now it is clear that what's on blockchain is traceable. Of course there are anonym blockchains (or wannabees), but regardless of that this shows how much crypto is expanded within the world. Adoption is everywhere!
As we all know there are still some countries that are not doing well with blockchain technology. If someone uses it wrongly even then, action must be taken against him. Really this app is awesome and helpful. Even now, people around the world who are supporting blockchain technology and telling others about it are doing a lot of good because that's what the future is all about.
Wao, this is very serious about the not sending bitcoin to them again, I just wonder how they want them to survive and how they would get money to sustain themselves
Briefcases full of cash from Iran is the usual method (I'm told).
Ohh! That would be a better one, at least they would get something to live on
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I agree with you here, this is in no way negative news in my point as well, if some people and groups of people have decided to stop using or receiving Bitcoin as a form of transaction, what's wrong here for us? if these people are really bad people and were using the money for negative purposes, better if they stay from bitcoin, and if they are good people and for the security of their investment, they want to stop using bitcoin, that's their right, and they can do it for sure as well. but it will not harm bitcoin or any other currency in any way. The world is big !!!!! thanks for sharing this with us @brainoflondon
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