KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 6): A simple digital card praising Islamist militants for an attack on a Taliban position in Afghanistan last month is the first known non-fungible token (NFT) created and disseminated by a terrorist sympathiser, according to former senior US intelligence officials.

In a report on Sunday (Sept 4), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said that it is a sign that Islamic State and other terror groups may be preparing to use the emerging financial technology to sidestep Western efforts to eradicate their online fundraising and messaging.

The NFT, visible on at least one NFT trading website and titled “IS-NEWS #01”, bears Islamic State’s emblem.

The WSJ, citing the former officials, said it was created by a supporter of the group, likely as an experiment to test a new outreach and funding strategy for Islamic State.

It said regulators and national-security officials have expressed concern about the potential for terrorists to exploit new financial technologies and markets, including NFTs.

“It was only a matter of time,” said Yaya Fanusie, a former economic and counterterrorism analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.

An NFT is a unit of data stored on a blockchain — a database of transactions organised without the need for a central trusted authority.

The technology first emerged as a means of tracking, valuing and trading digital assets, but developers said that it has much broader applications, such as digital concert tickets and branded collectibles like digital trading cards.

The WSJ said IS-NEWS #01 does not appear to have been traded, but its existence on the blockchain — distributed across countless systems connected to the internet — makes it nearly impossible for the US Department of Justice and other law-enforcement agencies to take it off the internet unlike, say, a news release that lives on a conventional website serviced by a host.

“It’s as censorship-proof as you can get,” said Mario Cosby, a former federal intelligence analyst specialising in blockchain currencies.

“There’s not really anything anyone can do to actually take this NFT down,” said Cosby, who is now at blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs.