How Russian Spies Hid Behind Bitcoin in Hacking Campaign -- NYT

Final paragraphs from a timely *coin reality check

"The Russians also used Bitcoin to pay for the servers from which they launched malware campaigns and “spearphishing” attacks against the Democratic National Committee, according to the indictment. In those attacks, it said, the Russian operatives gained control of the email accounts of American officials.

American investigators were able to use the blockchain to go back and identify some of the transactions that Russian agents made. But it was not enough to stop them from making the transactions at the time.

“The fact that cryptocurrencies are global and real time means that you might only find out about these things after the fact,” Mr. Levin said. “We need to think about the responsibilities that we all have in a world where payments move seamlessly across borders in the blink of an eye.”"

How Russian Spies Hid Behind Bitcoin in Hacking Campaign -- NYT