The debate by many financial experts on the benefits and disadvantages of cryptocurrencies in the economy has continued. This time, a popular financial expert, Lee Reiners, has argued why cryptocurrencies need to be banned.
He claimed that the popularity of cryptocurrencies and the rise of ransomware is not a coincidence. According to him, cryptocurrency is the reason why cybercrime and ransomware have increased in recent times.
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Reiners is also executive director of the Center for Global Financial Markets at Duke University. While talking to CNBC
, said that “the existence of Bitcoin and the rest does not benefit anyone except criminals and speculators.”
He added that the best way to curb the threat from these threat actors is to completely stop cryptocurrencies.
Increased number of ransom payments to hackers
Reiners was asked about the percentage of ransom payments to hackers using cryptocurrencies. He said the number has increased over the years. He claimed that the ransom amount paid so far could run into the billions, including reported and unreported cases. Reiners added that it is time for law enforcement to analyze the situation because cryptocurrencies do not provide any significant benefits to the economy. Instead, it has led to a lot of criminality, with the perpetrators getting bold because they can evade getting caught when receiving payments via cryptocurrency.
Ransomware payment ban
Reiners also spoke about experts’ suggestions to completely ban companies from paying the ransom as a solution to the growing number of threats. He stated that the problem is not to enact the law, but to get people to comply with it. The nature of crypto payments can make it difficult to know who has paid a ransom and who has not. He noted that the law will not be effective even if 10% of companies still pay the ransom. According to him, it will defeat the whole purpose and encourage more threat actors.
Reiners concluded that the best solution is to ban the means used by criminals to collect their ransom, which is cryptocurrency.
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