White supremacists have made massive profits through bitcoin, new analysis suggests

Some white supremacists who invested early in bitcoin have made massive profits off it and other cryptocurrencies, generating tens of millions of dollars in wealth, new research suggests. 

An analysis released Thursday by the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center identified more than 600 cryptocurrency addresses used by white supremacists and other far-right extremists.

The research says that figures who have championed white supremacist views — including Andrew Auernheimer, Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer website, and right-wing commentator Stefan Molyneux — were early investors in bitcoin and “turned a substantial profit from it.”

“The estimated tens of millions of dollars’ worth of value extreme far-right figures generated represents a sum that would almost certainly be unavailable to them without cryptocurrency, and it gave them a chance to live comfortable lives while promoting hate and authoritarianism,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s analysis on its Hatewatch blog. 

The analysis goes on to say that “nothing is inherently criminal or extreme about” cryptocurrency and that “most of its users have no connections to the extreme far-right.”

“However, the far right’s early embrace of cryptocurrency merits deeper analysis, due to the way they used it to expand their movement and to obscure funding sources,” said Hatewatch’s report.

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