US Senator Cynthia Lummis has contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ) to file serious criminal charges against Binance and Tether, a USDT supplier. She alleges that the two companies have been involved in illegal fund collection for siding with terror-related activities. However, Elliptic, a blockchain security and analytics company, believes that the WSJ report does not contain factual data.
As per the senator, the DOJ needs to carry out a thorough investigation before filing serious charges. In this regard, the senator has forwarded a letter to the DOJ stating that, in her viewpoint, the two companies played the role of middlemen and were indulging in the financing of Hamas.
Incidentally, the letter also has the signatures of Representative French Hill, Chair Sub-committee, and House Financial Services, and it is in response to a report released by Wall Street Journal. The report convinced a section of lawmakers that Hamas had acquired large volumes of crypto and then went to war with Israel.
From the viewpoint of Elliptic, there is no proof whatsoever that the crypto funding reached the figure of $130 million, as mentioned by the Wall Street Journal in its article.
On the other hand, Tether came out with a statement that they remain firm in their ideals and would never consider sponsoring terrorism by making crypto available. The stablecoin supplier has committed its full cooperation on every matter and reached out to Israel to block all funding they feel is for aiding terror acts.
According to the CEO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, the misuse of crypto is extremely miniscule in the conventional financial space. The WSJ article managed to share misinformation that is harmful.
In the opinion of the Partner of Castle Island Ventures, Nic Carter, he strongly feels that crypto needs to make its positioning in view of the new regulatory considerations. The Co-Founder and CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, fully agrees with Carter and feels the requirement is for WSJ to take back its report.