'Bitcoin is the free speech of money': fears grow over far right's embrace of crypto

When Elon Musk appeared on huge screens dotted along Whitehall last weekend calling for thousands of attendees at far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom rally to "fight back... or die", the tech billionaire's image was accompanied by the logos of the event's sponsors. All but one were cryptocurrencies.

- John Simpson & Catherine Neilan

It highlighted the arrival in Britain of a global pattern: the embrace by extreme rightwing movements of decentralised digital currencies.

Athena Bitcoin Global, one of the main sponsors of the event, which saw up to 150,000 people gather in central London, has been accused of profiting from cybercrime in the US.

This month, the attorney general for the District of Columbia (DC) accused the company, which makes bitcoin ATMs that exchange the cryptocurrency for cash and vice versa, of knowingly profiting from scams targeting elderly victims for “life-altering” sums of cash.

In a lawsuit filed against Athena, DC attorney general Brian Schwalb alleged that 93% of the deposits in that district in its first five months were “the product of outright fraud”.

One elderly victim is alleged to have lost $98,000 (£72,000) over the course of three days after being exploited by scammers. The average age of the victims was 71.

“Not only has Athena done little to nothing to prevent this fraud,” the lawsuit stated, “but it has instead pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed fees on the backs of scam victims and adopted policies to prevent these victims from recovering any of their losses.”

Authorities have long warned that cryptocurrencies pose an urgent challenge to the UK’s democracy by enabling hostile state actors and foreign nationals to secretly donate to political parties.