U.S. deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein's revelation that 12 Russian military intelligence agents used bitcoin to fund hacking efforts targeting Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 has sparked firestorm on social media and in US political circles.
A grand jury in the District of Columbia on Friday indicted dozen members of Russian Federation intelligence agency GRU for hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and released that information on the internet under the names "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0."
Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein revealed that the hackers laundered the equivalent of more than $95,000 through mining bitcoin and other means intended to obscure the origin of the funds. This funding structure supported their efforts to buy key accounts, servers, and domains.
He cited that the same bitcoin mining operation that funded the registration payment for DCLeaks.com also funded the servers and domains used in the spear phishing campaign.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver took to Twitter to argue that "the crypto industry needs to step their game up."
"The stunning revelation that Russian intelligence officials used #cryptocurrency to conceal their attacks on our democracy in 2016 means it's time for Congress to study ways in which we can responsibly regulate this new form of currency," he tweeted.
Cleaver's remarks evoked massive response on social media. Some saw it as another scandal to taint the cryptocurrency sphere, and called Cleaver and his associates "a bunch of corrupt idiots".
One of the comments on Twitter read: "Corrupt politician expresses concern over hackers who exposed vast political corruption within his own party. They rigged their own primary election and somehow it's Bitcoin's fault."
An investor named Simon Mikhailovich noted that the indictment and the fact that the FBI was able to document virtually every step of the perpetrators should remind all investors that their activities on blockchain are easily traceable and not hidden from view.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Economic News
What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
April 17, 2026 15:29 ET The ongoing conflict in the Middle East continues to raise concerns for policymakers who worry about the impact of the supply shock and high energy prices on the real economy. Producer price data and various survey results on the housing market were the main news from the U.S. this week. In Europe, industrial production data for the euro area gained attention. GDP figures out of China and the policy move by the Singapore central bank were in focus in Asia.