Ever wanted to find out more about secret and special operations in France? Ever wondered what secrets exist at a government level? Well, according to reports out today, an unidentified agent from the General Directorate for Internal Security (GDIS) has been selling French state secrets on the dark web in exchange for Bitcoin.

We’re not sure this goes the right way for Bitcoin adoption, but I guess it does give the currency another use value right?

The agent has since been arrested for their efforts in the extraction of official documents from within the French government. As it stands, the reports are unsure how much Bitcoin was actually raised during this attack on the privacy of the state. According to The Next Web:

“The information leaks were first identified by the Judicial Police. The GDIS’s internal security service was then notified, and pursued investigating the case further. Every member of personnel within the GDIS has an individual code which tracks their computer activity. By using this code, the investigation was able to identify the perpetrator responsible for the data leaks.”

This again acts as another instance that relates Bitcoin to crime. Many reports are starting to blame Bitcoin for having a role in this, but as we know, this isn’t the case. It’s actually just that the agent in question decided to sell the secrets for Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is easy to use. Tarnishing Bitcoin with crime is like saying every hammer has the potential to be used in car theft, yes, it could be used in car theft but it also has a lot of other more positive uses too.

There’s a huge problem with in the media, a problem that constantly uses crime to undermine the liberating power that Bitcoin holds. It’s making Bitcoin adoption harder to achieve and it’s making Bitcoin investors look shady. We’re not all hiding on the dark web and we’re not all purchasing French state secrets online.

The real challenge here is convincing the French government that Bitcoin is not the issue here, the issue is the trust within their own structures. Bitcoin did not facilitate this crime, nor did it allow it to happen. If Bitcoin wasn’t there as a payment medium, FIAT cash would have been used instead.

The Next Web