Future Retirement Success
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks

Future Retirement Success

Investing

Senator Warren Targets Crypto with Questionable Data, Again

by October 27, 2023
October 27, 2023
Senator Warren Targets Crypto with Questionable Data, Again

Nicholas Anthony

Shortly after the violence erupted in Israel on October 7, an article in the Wall Street Journal pinned part of the blame for terrorist financing on cryptocurrency. That was all that was needed for Senator Elizabeth Warren (D‑MA) to get over 100 members of Congress to sign a letter calling for a crackdown on cryptocurrency in the wake of this tragedy.

Yet it now seems the initial reporting was exaggerated as the Wall Street Journal issued a correction on October 27 to address some of the issues. However, this incident is not the first time one of Senator Warren’s anti‐​cryptocurrency letters has been based on questionable data.

What Happened

Originally, the Wall Street Journal piece in question said that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad received “as much as $93 million in crypto between August 2021 and June this year,” and that Hamas received “about $41 million over a similar time period.” The piece credited the estimates to the companies Elliptic and BitOK, but no reports from the companies were linked.

A week later, over 100 members of Congress signed a letter led by Senator Warren that cited the Wall Street Journal’s reporting nearly a dozen times as the only source to claim that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas collectively raised over $130 million in cryptocurrency.

A day later, Chainalysis published their findings to correct the record. Simply put, Chainalysis warned that the number reported in the Wall Street Journal article was likely wrong because the difference between the total transaction volume at a service provider (e.g., an exchange) and transactions at a known terror‐​affiliated wallet can be vast.

In the example Chainalysis provided, one service provider was identified as having $82 million in total transactions, but only $450,000 of that amount went to a known terror‐​affiliated wallet. Turning back to the source for one of the figures in the Wall Street Journal piece, this type of issue is likely why Elliptic cautioned readers that “it is not clear exactly how much of these funds belong directly to the [Palestinian Islamic Jihad]”—a warning the Wall Street Journal article left out.

Another week later, Elliptic published its own correction stating, “there is no evidence to suggest that crypto fundraising has raised anything close to [the amount cited in the Wall Street Journal], and data provided by Elliptic and others has been misinterpreted.” In fact, Elliptic said that its team reached out to both Senator Warren and the Wall Street Journal to clarify this point.

To be fair, mistakes happen—especially in the fog of war. And that is why it is good to see the Wall Street Journal issued a correction on October 27. However, what is especially unfortunate about this incident is how similar it is to another time Senator Warren wrote a letter about supposed illicit use of cryptocurrency.

An Unfortunate Trend

Back in August, Senator Warren led a different group of senators in a letter calling for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to “act swiftly to implement strong tax reporting rules for cryptocurrency brokers” to close a “$50 billion crypto tax gap.” The press release accompanying the letter claimed that multiple “studies” substantiated this number, but a closer look reveals the sources were just two 2022 articles from CNBC and Bloomberg that pointed to the same research note from Barclays.

Although it’s unclear if this research note is publicly available, both articles cite Joseph Abate, a managing director at Barclays, as having said that unpaid taxes on cryptocurrency may be as much as “$50 billion per year.” CNBC quoted him further as having said, “Without any supporting IRS data, our sense is that the $50 billion estimate for the crypto tax gap is probably too small.” And in Bloomberg, it was clarified that Abate had “extrapolated from a 2017 IRS calculation to find the current tax gap would be around $50 billion per year” because the “U.S. tax agency hasn’t released any recent estimate of its own.”

If nothing else, judging an emerging industry in 2023 off IRS data from 2017 should be a red flag. However, what’s perhaps more concerning is that the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that taxing cryptocurrency would only yield $28 billion over ten years. In fact, the Biden administration later revised that estimate down to just $2 billion over ten years.

So again, it seems an anti‐​cryptocurrency narrative is being built in Congress based on questionable evidence, to say the least.

Conclusion

The good news is that the tide is already starting to turn: more and more people are taking notice of this issue. On October 26, Senator Bill Hagerty (R‑TN) spoke up during a Senate Banking Committee hearing to clarify the record. However, whether the more than 100 members of Congress that signed Senator Warren’s letter will soon make similar clarifications is still to be seen.

Kudos to @SenatorHagerty for clarifying the record in response to WSJ’s reporting on cryptocurrency use and terrorist financing.

This is especially important given how many members of Congress endorsed that reporting. pic.twitter.com/rNQDbVOi1B

— Nick Anthony (@EconWithNick) October 26, 2023

0
FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
previous post
Watch the Unemployment Rate – It Could Change Everything!
next post
Bonds Are Now Beating Stocks While NVDA Goes In Tailspin

You may also like

My Thoughts on Letters in Black and White

May 25, 2023

Governments Should Not Fund Research

July 31, 2023

US Funding of the United Nations

March 19, 2025

Reflections on My Visit to Fudan University After...

October 28, 2024

SCOTUS Confirms That Social Media Platforms Have First...

July 1, 2024

Modern Libertarianism Author: “It’s the Ideas’ Victories That...

March 14, 2025

International Economic Chaos: Trump’s Remade Global Order

August 8, 2025

What’s Another $56 Billion in Emergency Spending?

October 30, 2023

Rock and Roll Wisdom: Reject Authoritarian Vehicle Mandates

September 25, 2024

Federal Housing Tax Credit: 2,060 Pages of Brutal...

March 19, 2024

    Get free access to all of the retirement secrets and income strategies from our experts! or Join The Exclusive Subscription Today And Get the Premium Articles Acess for Free

    By opting in you agree to receive emails from us and our affiliates. Your information is secure and your privacy is protected.

    Recent Posts

    • Trump’s Debanking Order Calls for Investigation, Something Tennessee Should Have Done

      August 9, 2025
    • MIKE DAVIS: Eric Tung is Trump’s pick to bring sanity to the Ninth Circuit

      August 9, 2025
    • How Europe’s car industry can survive the Chinese EV challenge

      August 9, 2025
    • Hiring Software & JavaScript Developers: Skills, Costs, and Best Practices

      August 9, 2025
    • Rakhi Butani on Skincare, Cooking, and the Power of Balance

      August 9, 2025
    • Jeremy Clarkson warns of ‘catastrophic’ UK harvest as farmers battle extreme weather and rising costs

      August 9, 2025

    Categories

    • Business (8,728)
    • Investing (2,191)
    • Politics (16,345)
    • Stocks (3,228)
    • About us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions

    Disclaimer: futureretirementsuccess.com, its managers, its employees, and assigns (collectively “The Company”) do not make any guarantee or warranty about what is advertised above. Information provided by this website is for research purposes only and should not be considered as personalized financial advice. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendation. Any investments recommended here should be taken into consideration only after consulting with your investment advisor and after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

    Copyright © 2025 futureretirementsuccess.com | All Rights Reserved