Crypto exchange ShapeShift boss Erik Voorhees took to Twitter this morning to hit out at Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter Paul Vigna.
Mr @paulvigna your work on crypto may not age well. Might I suggest sticking to your better talent of authoring books on The Walking Dead… itself a fitting label for the banks and financial institutions sponsoring and patronizing the @wsj #factsmatter https://t.co/1VHLCxfvbC
— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) March 23, 2019
Last year, the newspaper ran an article entitled “How Dirty Money Disappears Into the Black Hole of Cryptocurrency.’ This claimed that ShapeShift had facilitated at least $9 million worth of money laundering over several years with “a parade of suspected criminals.”
At ShapeShift’s request, CipherBlade carried out a review of the article and, surprise, surprise, its findings, released this past week, were damning.
“The WSJ’s reporters produced a very misleading and factually incorrect article about ShapeShift,” it concluded. “It appears impossible to objectively reproduce their work or reach conclusions even remotely close to the claims made in the story about transactions that can be publicly reviewed by anyone with a basic understanding of the technology.”
“We encourage the WSJ to publish the transaction IDs that support their claim that $9 million in illicit assets that were “laundered” through ShapeShift, and we welcome any independent forensic reviewer to use that data to rebut our analysis published here.”
Final word to Vigna, who responded immediately to Voerhees’ The Walking Dead jibe. Nice comeback, sir.
Yeah, the Walking Dead book was pretty good, wasn't it? Thanks!
— Paul Vigna (@paulvigna) March 23, 2019
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.