Claims that Hamas, a Palestinian organization, is securing substantial funding via cryptocurrency have been dismissed by top blockchain forensics firms, including Elliptic.
An Oct. 25 report from Elliptic refutes recent assertions from Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that Hamas is garnering significant crypto donations. WSJ previously claimed that Hamas had generated around $134M in cryptocurrency since 2021.
Elliptic, alongside Chainalysis and TRM Labs, found no evidence of substantial crypto financing for Hamas. The firm said, “No public crypto fundraising campaign by a terrorist group has received significant levels of donations, relative to other funding sources.”
The research firm highlighted that Hamas began soliciting crypto donations in 2019, peaking in May 2021, but suspended all such fundraising in April 2023 due to donor safety concerns. It added that blockchain transparency allows illicit funds to be traced and, in some cases, linked to real-world identities, illustrating the weakness of crypto as a terrorism fundraising tool.
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