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ISIS allegedly funded the deadly Sri Lanka Easter bombings with Bitcoin donations.
The April 21 attacks on hotels and churches in Sri Lanka killed more than 250 people, including 40 foreign nationals, the UK based Mirror reported.
Now a blockchain intelligence company called Whitestream has claimed ISIS used the CoinPayments platform to convert cryptocurrency into dollars. shortly before the attacks. The Israeli intelligence startup told Globes that Bitcoin’s anonymity and unsupervised international money transfers make it ideal for use by terrorist groups.
Whitestream has since discovered there was a surge of transfers to Bitcoin wallets allegedly used by ISIS the day before the coordinated attacks which left hundreds dead.
Authorities suspect members of two previously little-known groups - National Thawheedh Jamaath and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim - of carrying out the attacks, although Islamic State has claimed responsibility. During an investigation, Whitestream discovered the Bitcoin balance held by CoinPayments increased by hundreds of percent on April 20.
The balance of the main wallet rose from £383,000 [$500,000] to £3.45 million [$4.5m] on April 20.
On Easter Sunday, the balance reverted back to the original amount, which had been there at for the previous nine months.
Whitestream discovered the Bitcoin balance held by CoinPayments increased by hundreds of percent on April 20