Bitcoin just received a strong vote of confidence from an unlikely source, a former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In so doing, he put senior government officials who issue public warnings about bitcoin’s alleged use by criminals, such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, on notice.
Michael Morell, a 33-year veteran of the agency, published an independent paper commissioned by the newly formed lobbying group Crypto Council for Innovation (whose founding members include Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Square)
directly refuting this well-traveled narrative. In an expansive study, Morell came to two key conclusions:
The broad generalizations about the use of bitcoin in illicit finance are significantly overstated.