Retract False Publication Over Hamas Crypto Funding – Analyst

• Sam Callahan has held the WSJ accountable over a recent publication error.
• The WSJ claimed Hamas received $90 million worth of crypto in funding.
• WSJ’s authors mistakenly counted an entire exchange’s trading volume for a terrorist group’s address.

Sam Callahan, the Lead Market Analyst at Swan, has held The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) accountable over a recent publication error. According to Callahan, the WSJ was yet to retract false news that it broadcast through an article, claiming that Hamas received $90 million worth of crypto in funding.

Callahan explained that WSJ needs to publish a retraction to the article. According to him, not doing so would allow politicians with an agenda to continue using the fake news as evidence to attack an industry they have a personal vendetta against.

Last week, the WSJ published an article claiming Hamas received about $90 million worth of crypto in funding. Callahan noted this as a serious claim with significant implications, considering it also gained substantial attention. According to the analyst, anti-Bitcoin politicians took advantage of the publication and wrote a letter to the White House and Treasury. The letter prevailed on the authorities ​​to address the serious national security threats posed by crypto’s use to finance terrorism.

Callahan noted that Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis firm, ran the numbers and discovered that the article was false. Chainalysis confirmed that the article’s authors mistakenly counted an entire exchange’s trading volume ($82 million) for a terrorist group’s address.

Chainalysis proved that only about $450,000 out of the roughly $82 million in cryptocurrency received by this address came from the known terror-affiliated wallet. The Chainalysis report clarified that the person or group controlling the wallet is likely not the same person in charge of the terror-affiliated wallet. The blockchain analysis platform presumes it could be a service provider that knowingly or unknowingly facilitated terror financing activity.

Owing to this discovery, Callahan thinks WSJ needs to publish a retraction to the original article. He believes that move would check anyone willing to use the misleading information to launch a political attack on the crypto industry.