French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve calls for greater control over darknets and social networks due to raising terrorism threat. His claims may signify upcoming hard times for bitcoin in the country.

Speaking in the French Senate in the wake of terrorist attacks in Brussels, Cazeneuve emphasised the criminal threat posed by the darknet and informal networks, “which are not indexed by traditional search engines and which run a large amount of data issued by criminal organisations, including jihadists.” According to the French minister, “it is essential” for domestic intelligence to reach the same level of expertise and knowledge the “enemies” demonstrate using these channels for communication. Cazeneuve insists that IT-specialists working for European authorities “must be able to detect upcoming acts that may be committed on our soil.”

Earlier, during discussions in government, Cazeneuve made similar statements:

“Those who attacked us use the darknet and encrypted messaging to get access to weapons in order to hit us.”

As bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency circulating in the deep web, it can be suggested that French law enforcement agencies are going to closely monitor bitcoin transactions on darknet marketplaces.

Later, in an interview with the radio station Europe 1, Nicolas Arpagian, Scientific Director of the Digital Security programme at the National Institute for Advanced Studies in Security and Justice, noted that darknet transactions are being made “not in euros or dollars, but in the anonymous currency called bitcoin.” Arpagian reminded that it is possible to buy drugs and weapons on the darknet trading platforms and that terrorists are potentially able to use these markets. Thus, the French expert draws a connection between bitcoin, illicit drug and weapon trafficking and terrorist organisations.

Such rhetoric of the French minister may mark the beginning of a new round of harsh discussions on cryptocurrency regulations. After terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, many politicians and experts had already called for the strengthening of control over cryptocurrency circulation. According to European regulators, cryptomoney offer greater anonymity than cash and other payment methods. Those discussions led to new regulative measures being developed to tighten control over the movement of digital assets.

Thus, in mid-2016, several targeted amendments may be made to the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD4) and the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) of the European Union. New rules can affect the anonymity of virtual currency exchanges. Furthermore, the European Commission seeks to introduce “customer due diligence” thus demanding vendors to verify the identity of prepaid cards’ customers.

At the same time, in January, the EU’s central law enforcement authority Europol published a report revealing that there is no reliable evidence yet confirming the usage of bitcoin by ISIL to finance its activity.

Elena Platonova