Over the last several years, extremist and terrorist groups have begun using cryptocurrencies in a myriad of operational capacities.
Hamas has used a crypto-financing network to solicit donations via encrypted messaging groups and on the Al-Qassam Brigades’ website, while the Islamic State and its branches have turned to crowdfunding through digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Tether and Ethereum (ETH). Far-right extremists have also begun using crypto-rewarding platforms for civilian intelligence gathering. Due to the ethical and legal issues that crypto-surveillance creates, this Insight aims to examine how far-right groups, and more specifically, their individual members, have adapted the ever-popular cryptocurrency tools in the context of extremist technology adoption and innovation. To do so, this Insight examines the case of ICERAID, an app run by Enrique Tarrio, a former leader of the United States far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys. The Proud Boys is also a designated terrorist entity in Canada and New Zealand. ICERAID is an app worthy of analysis, as it offers cryptocurrency-based rewards for civilian surveillance. According to its website, it enables citizens across the United States to report various “categories of suspected criminal activity,” including purported undocumented immigrants. By using ICERAID, citizens may act as supporting associates for the on-site agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICERAID uses AI-powered validation systems and public mapping, and provides monetary rewards in the form of “RAID tokens” to users who identify, report, or provide photographic evidence of undocumented immigrants.
The Role of Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that operate based on complex cryptographic algorithms. Although they have all the characteristics of real monetary currencies, they are not backed by any state authority and exist solely in a digital form. Since their worldwide dissemination and use by ordinary citizens and corporations alike, the core appealing element and functionality feature of most cryptocurrencies has been their blockchain technology, which is used to store all transactions that have ever been made at each junction point within the cryptocurrency network. The network itself consists of decentralised server farms, which are used by individual or group “miners”, and a specific crypto transaction is not technically complete until it is added to the blockchain. Once the transaction is completed, it is usually irreversible within a couple of minutes of its initiation. Due to such an operating system, blockchain platforms ensure data security for transactions while detaching from a central authority, a government’s regulatory body, or a specific tech-development corporation, making users’ funds and personal information inaccessible.
ICERAID
After President Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024, the United States’ federal law enforcement agency ICE has been increasingly monitoring, arresting and deporting undocumented and illegal migrants from the US within the tightened immigration policy. In the first six months of the Trump Administration, ICE recorded nearly 150,000 deportations, or an average of more than 800 per day. In January 2025, following new immigration executive orders outlined by the administration, Tarrio, a former leader of the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys, created the ICERAID app in collaboration with Jason Meyers, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur. The group is known across the US for anti-immigrant ideology, and the app was created under the justification of “empowering communities” to participate in public safety and creating a new Golden Age of America. This AI-powered platform enables civilians to gather and disseminate intelligence information on undocumented and illegal migrants from their local communities across the US, which is then validated through the app’s system. To motivate people to capture and upload photographic and video evidence of suspected criminal and immigrant activity, the app offers cryptocurrency rewards to its users. More precisely, the more images and locations users upload and validate, the more ICERAID rewards with tokens, which ultimately accumulate in each user’s account and are claimable subject to the vesting provisions. Another feature of this blockchain platform is that it allows undocumented migrants themselves to register and pursue a legal status in the United States. The app rewards these self-registered users as well.
ICERAID presents itself as the first GovFi protocol for collecting and validating criminal evidence to support law enforcement procedures. While GovFi – short for “government finance” – refers to a web3 and AI model aimed at reducing bureaucratic inefficiencies, cutting public spending, and improving the productivity of tax-funded agencies through decentralised citizen participation and financial incentives, ICERAID itself is not officially affiliated with the US government. However, several conservative political officials and far-right activists have been promoting the app in public appearances and on social media channels. In addition, one of the app’s founders, Meyers, claimed that negotiations are ongoing with the US administration and state agencies regarding the official collaboration with the platform.
Owing to the app’s technical features and purpose, numerous ethical and legal issues have been raised. As the app is designed as a crowdsourced surveillance and reporting tool that uses AI, geo-mapping and financial incentives in the form of cryptocurrencies, it poses a risk of false accusations against the large, diverse, and lawful segments of the US migrant population. In fact, since the app is using an AI-powered validation system for the photographs and videos uploaded by its users, it risks racially biased detection results which target specific communities. For instance, these could be individuals of Latino, Asian or African origin, as well as any other racial or ethnic minority group in the US. Besides this, consensual photographing, filming and reporting on an individual’s location raises serious concerns over personal data protection, personal autonomy, and dignity. Although US law permits filming or photographing anyone without their consent in public spaces, such as parks, sidewalks and similar, consent is required to take audio-visual recordings of anyone in any private space, including private properties and rooms inside their home, medical facilities, changing rooms and so on. Finally, as ICERAID’s crypto rewards incentivise ordinary citizens to “act” as de facto ICE and law enforcement agents, the platform exemplifies a form of digital vigilantism, an act of unauthorised extrajudicial action carried out by private individuals motivated by perceived notions of justice or retribution, often operating outside established legal and ethical frameworks.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Crypto-insentivised surveillance is just one of the ways extremist groups have been using these modern, decentralised, anonymous, fast and cost-effective digital payment methods. The examined case of the ICERAID app, which is designed for detecting illegal and undocumented migrants across the US, is just an example of how such a blockchain platform that uses a crypto-rewarding system can be used by those with extremist agendas. Without a doubt, ICERAID and similar platforms are dangerous cyber spaces that combine innovative technologies, anonymity through blockchain crypto transactions, as well as AI-powered surveillance of the civilian population. In this specific case study, the main issue is that official governmental institutions have allegedly negotiated with the app’s founders to set up an official collaborative network. This poses a significant risk that, without urgent regulatory intervention and ethical accountability – particularly the kind that financial and legal supervisory bodies should demand from technology companies – such tools may normalise vigilantism, undermine civil rights, and embed racial bias and discrimination within emerging systems of digital governance.
However, there are a couple of key recommendations for both tech companies and governments on how to minimise risks and negative impacts crypto-surveillance can have, which are applicable even beyond the US borders. First and foremost, state governments should make a serious effort to enhance their regulatory systems to prevent any kind of vigilante surveillance platforms. In addition, they should restrict crypto-rewarding for such platforms that incentivise malicious or discriminatory surveillance acts and prevent potential crypto or monetary transactions associated with discriminatory or violent activities. Illegal photographing and filming for crypto rewards should be specifically prohibited. Since ICERAID users appear to exploit ambiguities in US privacy law concerning the permissibility of photographing individuals in public spaces, legislative bodies should consider strengthening legal frameworks governing non-consensual surveillance in semi-private contexts, as well as expanding penalties for unauthorised acts that imitate or interfere with legitimate law enforcement functions.
Tech companies and crypto-surveillance app developers should aim to enhance AI validation systems integrated in the platforms to avoid discriminatory algorithms. In addition, more collaboration between blockchain analytics firms and app developers should be established to identify whether cryptocurrencies are being used by extremist individuals for their own interests and goals.
All in all, the ICERAID application that has been developed in light of the tightened immigration laws in the US demonstrates how cryptocurrencies and AI-powered surveillance can be exploited by far-right extremists. Better regulation, enhanced oversight on crypto transactions and flows, and a more responsible development of AI tools by technology companies are highly needed to reduce further threats posed by extremist misuse of digital innovations and, ultimately, protect human rights.
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Nina Kurt is an MA student in Security Intelligence and Strategic studies with a BA in International Relations and Diplomacy. Nina has several years of work experience as a researcher and analyst in the Security and Defence researcher of Finabel in Brussels, at the European Stability Initiative in Berlin, West Africa Network for Peacebuilding in Ghana, and FOMOSO in Switzerland. In addition, she has also completed an Internship at the UNDP, she is a freelance researcher and writer who has authored and co-authored works on human rights, geopolitics, security and peacebuilding that have been published and awarded several times by various online magazines and scientific journals.
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