Bitcoin Used For Surging Fake COVID Vaccine Passports Business

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Whereas the US plans for a return to the office after Labor Day, European nations have started doing so. Dutch newspaper Volkskrant ran an interesting story about the office return in June already. Other Western European nations are also seeing heightened office presence.

However, as it’s August, rich Europeans tend to plan a few more weeks of holidays and ditto travel plans. In America this leads to last-minute changes and surging demand for cheap flights (see the troubles surrounding Spirit airlines at the moment), in Europe it means you have to show a vaccine passport.

App software and color printers

The vaccine passport, called a Pass Sanitaire in France and known as a Green Pass in Italy, will be used to grant entry to bars, restaurants and museums in major tourist destinations. As from September, Germany will join in as well. With millions still unvaccinated, there is a growing demand for fake vaccine passports of course, which seem easy enough to copy through app software and color printers.

Problem for the world of crypto is that their products, cryptocurrencies, are used to pay for these fake passports. Whereas now this is only a small business still, you can expect booming demand as from the fall of this year, when employers will demand proof of vaccination in return for the right to work.

UK and Italy

Fortune already revealed how one of their reporters was able to obtain a fake NHS vaccine card that showed her having received two doses of AstraZeneca whereas in reality the writer was an American woman who had been fully vaccinated with Pfizer. Payment for the fake UK vaccine card was done via Bitcoin, and cost some €236.

A month ago, Yahoo Finance revealed how the cybercrime unit in Milan stopped a criminal gang from selling fake Italian vaccine passports, costing between €100 and €130, payment once again in Bitcoin.

Should this become part of a larger trend, the mantra of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and ECB President Christine Lagarde that Bitcoin (and crypto in general) is mostly used by criminals for illegal purposes, will once again make headlines.

The cryptosphere, which is cheering on Bitcoin as it surged over $45,000 again this weekend, does not need news like this now.