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.
Last week, the @WSJ published an article claiming about $90 million worth of crypto was used to fund Hamas — a serious claim that gained significant attention.
In response to the article, anti-Bitcoin politicians directly linked the WSJ article as evidence in a letter to the…
— Sam Callahan (@samcallah) October 21, 2023
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.
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