Can cryptocurrencies be used to support terrorist groups? First we'd have to displace their most important funding mechanisms, which are the US dollar and oil (some of which our governments gave to them directly). We live in a world where criminals use technology (money, telephones, shoes), but we don't ban those technologies just because criminals use them. Most of humanity will use them for food, sanitation, healthcare etc. It is a fake promise that we're going to stop terrorism by controlling everyone's money, because all it does is exclude billions of people from the global financial system.
Transcript
[AUDIENCE] Sorry, I am kind of new to this. Please forgive me if my questions are obvious. Will Bitcoin eventually make it easy to elicit and contribute support to terrorist groups, for example? [ANDREAS] Well, first we would need to displace the most important funding mechanisms...
that terrorist groups have, which are the U.S. dollar and oil, some of which we gave to them directly... through our governments. Who are we fighting this time?
I think we were against Al-Qaeda at first, but now we are helping them in Syria. Or are we with Daesh now? I can't keep up with that. The bottom line is, we live in a world where criminals use money.
They also use telephones, shoes, water... We don't ban [useful things] because criminals use them. Instead, we make them as broadly available as possible, because 99.99% of humanity will use them for... food, [improving] sanitation, healthcare, and education.
Those are promising technologies. It is a fake promise [to say] that we will stop terrorism by controlling everybody's money. We are excluding 4.5 billion people from the current financial system. I don't accept that bargain.
I am not concerned about whether criminals will use [bitcoin]. I am more concerned about how we can help everybody else become part of a global financial system, with full access to all of the tools we in this room enjoy. Thank you.