Both articles basically say it's inconclusive that crypto is being used to effectively finance terrorism:
That's probably fair, in broad terms. I haven't heard of ISIS going all in on bitcoin.
But North Korea totally is. I don't think they're doing it for the traditional reasons that terrorist networks need to raise money, like paying for desert training centers and paying off the families of suicide bombers. They're doing it because it operates outside the traditional financial sector, which is currently allied against them. And isn't that kind of the point of crypto currencies, to operate outside the traditional financial sector? My understanding is that is exactly why they were created in the first place. It seems almost tailor-made for places like North Korea that need to circumvent traditional banking.
Bitcoin has been a hugely profitable investment for some people, as lavish press coverage has brought in thousands and thousands of new investors to be the greater fool. We've seen this story play out before, when an asset class gets too popular and prices spike beyond all reasonable expectations of profitability. Dotcoms did it. Iceland's currency did it. Tulip bulbs did it. I'm not saying bitcoin is trash, because I rather like the idea, personally. I'm just saying that the market price of bitcoin, and the firms associated with it, has become totally disconnected from the normal rules of economics by the explosive interest from get-rich-quick public investors. Just like with tulip bulbs.
And that sort of cash cow, however fleeting and/or technologically savvy it may be, is always going to attract organized crime and rouge nations looking to make a quick buck. It sounds like North Korea is trying to cash in. Maybe they're failing at it, I don't know, but they're certainly trying. They've stolen a bunch of bitcoins, and they've run spearfishing campaigns to steal more, and they've ransomed a bunch with the WannaCry attack, and now they're mining them and actively developing exploits to steal more in the future. Their stolen bitcoins are mostly traded for other digital currencies, and then into cash they can use to finance a regime that is currently under economic sanctions and unable to raise funding in other ways. I suspect it's a tiny fraction of their total national revenue, but it's not zero and if you've bought or sold bitcoins before then it sounds like there's a very real chance that you've transacted with North Korea.
And like I said before, that's why I think bitcoin is a risky investment. Not because the price is crazy volatile, or because I think it's insecure (though it has proven to be both of those things), but because I think it is potentially threatened by the international banking system locking it down, or at least making it much harder to exchange for normal money, because of it's historical involvement with places like North Korea (and with child porn, murder for hire, drug running, etc). I think that's the real threat to bitcoin. Civilized society might try to say no thank you, and then it won't matter how good your blockchain is. If they make it too hard to convert it into groceries, it's just another online gaming megasword item, invaluable to the right gamers but worthless to the rest of us.