Primavera De Filippi, Morshed Mannan, Wessel Reijers
Blockchain technology was created as a response to the trust crisis that swept the world in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Bitcoin and other blockchain-based systems were presented as a âtrustlessâ alternative to existing financial institutions and even governments. Yet, while the trustless nature of blockchain technology has been heavily questioned, little research has been done as to what blockchain technologies actually bring to the table in place of trust. This article draws from the extensive academic discussion on the concepts of âtrustâ and âconfidenceâ to argue that blockchain technology is not a âtrustless technologyâ but rather a âconfidence machineâ. First, the article provides a review of the multifaceted conceptualisations of trust and confidence, and the relationship between these two concepts. Second, the claim is made that blockchain technology relies on cryptographic rules, mathematics, and game-theoretical incentives in order to increase confidence in the operations of a computational system. Yet, such an increase in confidence ultimately relies on the proper operation and governance of the underlying blockchain-based network, which requires trusting a variety of actors. Third, the article turns to legal, constitutional and polycentric governance theory to explore the governance challenges of blockchain-based systems, in light of the tension between procedural confidence and trust.
Ransomware is malicious software (malware) that blocks access to someoneâs computer system or files on the system and subsequently demands a ransom to be paid for unlocking the computer or files. Ransomware is considered one of the main threats in cybercrime today. Cryptoware is a specific type of ransomware, which encrypts files on computer systems. The ransom is often demanded in bitcoins. Based on desk research, a series of interviews, and the investigation of several police files, this paper investigates the modi operandi in which cybercriminals use ransomware and cryptoware to make profits and how they launder these profits. Two models, based on the payment of the ransom via vouchers and via bitcoins respectively, are identified and described. These methods allow criminals to launder profits in relative anonymity and prevent the seizure of the illegally obtained money.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how cryptocurrencies are used to launder money and how solutions from Liechtensteinâs novel blockchain legislation could be used to tackle the issue. Design/methodology/approach Within the scope of the literature review, the characteristics of cryptocurrencies and how these characteristics facilitate money laundering are discussed. To investigate concrete methods that money launderers use, a qualitative study with 10 presumed money launderers and 18 prevention experts was conducted. The results were subsequently tested quantitatively. Thereafter, the novel Liechtenstein blockchain act is discussed and it is detailed how the legislation could contribute to the establishment of an international standard in blockchain regulation. Findings Money launderers continue to abuse cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as vehicles for financial crime. The Liechtenstein Blockchain Act could serve as a benchmark for regulators around the world aiming to solve the issue. Research limitations/implications Current anti-money laundering regulations are rather ineffective when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Practical implications The findings of this paper illustrate that new and innovative means for combating money laundering are needed. In particular, this paper provides insights into cryptocurrency crime and Liechtensteinâs response for legislators, law enforcement, compliance officers and regulatory authorities. Originality/value Liechtensteinâs blockchain act, as a potential remedy to money laundering, has thus far not received international attention.
Massimo La Morgia, Alessandro Mei, Francesco Sassi, Julinda Stefa
In the last years, cryptocurrencies are increasingly popular. Even people who are not experts have started to invest in these securities and nowadays cryptocurrency exchanges process transactions for over 100 billion US dollars per month. However, many cryptocurrencies have low liquidity and therefore they are highly prone to market manipulation schemes. In this paper, we perform an in-depth analysis of pump and dump schemes organized by communities over the Internet. We observe how these communities are organized and how they carry out the fraud. Then, we report on two case studies related to pump and dump groups. Lastly, we introduce an approach to detect the fraud in real time that outperforms the current state of the art, so to help investors stay out of the market when a pump and dump scheme is in action.
Blockchain technology has been a phenomenal discovery since its use on Bitcoin, a crypto currency created by Satoshi Nakamoto. Featuring decentralization, it allows Bitcoin to escape the interference of third parties and governments. Departing from Keynesian Theory, this study used a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. The econometric quantitative approach uses the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) modeling to predict the impact of Bitcoin investment on Indonesia's transaction of capital. A qualitative approach is used to analyze the LOFT effects of Bitcoin on Indonesia's economic resilience. Unlike previous studies, this study attempts to provide an explanation from the standpoint of national resilience, especially in the field of economic resilience. VECM analysis found that Bitcoin had a significant positive effect on Indonesia's transaction of capital in both the short and long terms Even though the magnitude of the influence of bitcoin is relatively small, it needs to watch out for macro performance through capital transactions. Qualitative data indicate that there is a change of Bitcoin function in Indonesia, from a payment method, into an instrument of investment. The finding explains that Bitcoin has the potential to weaken the resilience of the Indonesian economy through a reduction in the balance of payments, while Blockchain can be the main foundation of the financial industry revolution in Indonesia.
Blockchain is a public distributed ledger, which has the characteristics of decentralization and anonymization, which leads to the frequent occurrence of money laundering and theft. Taking Bitcoin as an example, traders can have multiple addresses, and these addresses have nothing to do with their identities in real life, their identities are difficult to identify, and it is difficult to track the flow of transaction funds on the blockchain. This paper proposes a transaction tracking system that can effectively and accurately track the source and destination of a certain amount of funds on the blockchain, which is superior to existing Bitcoin transaction tracking methods and has a substantial reference value.
The Bitcoin system keeps its ledger consistent in a blockchain by solving cryptographic problems, in a method called "Proof-of-Work". The conventional wisdom asserts that the mining protocol is incentive-compatible. However, Eyal and Sirer in 2014 have discovered a mining attack strategy called selfish mining (SM), in which a miner (or a mining pool) publishes the blocks it mines selectively instead of immediately. SM strategy would have the impact of wasting resources of honest miners. Scholars proposed various extensions of the SM strategy and approaches to defense the SM attack. Whether selfish mining occurs in practice or not, has been subject of extensive debate. For the first time, in this paper we propose a method to identify selfish miners by detecting anomalies in the properties of consecutive blocks' statistics. Furthermore, we extend our method to detect the mining cartels, in which miners secretly get together and share timely information. Our results provide evidence that these strategic behaviors take place in practice.
Bitcoin is gaining traction as an alternative store of value. Its market capitalization transcends all other cryptocurrencies in the market. But its high monetary value also makes it an attractive target to cyber criminal actors. Hacking campaigns usually target the weakest points in an ecosystem. In Bitcoin, these are currently the exchange platforms. As each exchange breach potentially decreases Bitcoin's market value by billions, it is a threat not only to direct victims, but to everyone owning Bitcoin. Based on an extensive analysis of 36 breaches of Bitcoin exchanges, we show the attack patterns used to exploit Bitcoin exchange platforms using an industry standard for reporting intelligence on cyber security breaches. Based on this we are able to provide an overview of the most common attack vectors, showing that all except three hacks were possible due to relatively lax security. We also show that while the security regimen of Bitcoin exchanges is not on par with other financial service providers, the use of stolen credentials, which does not require any hacking, is decreasing. We also show that the amount of BTC taken during a breach is decreasing, as well as the exchanges that terminate after being breached. With exchanges being targeted by nation-state hacking groups, security needs to be a first concern.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have the potential advantages to break traditional financial barriers, which have attracted great interests from civilian users, financial and online commercial industry, and researchers. However, a recent study [1] reported that approximately one-quarter of Bitcoin users and one-half of Bitcoin transactions are associated with illicit activity. Around US$72 billion of unlawful activity per year involves Bitcoin, which is close to the scale of the U.S. and European markets for illegal drugs. We have made an effort to understand and try our best to exhaustively discover Bitcoin mixing or tumbling services (essentially money laundering mechanisms) which exist or had existed. In our study, 69 services were identified, and evaluation of the public discussion around these services reveals certain trends in Bitcoin user understanding of privacy issues and enforcement of anti-money laundering regulation. So far, Law enforcement interference with Bitcoin laundering services is uncommon, while our study showed that most services failed due to lack of user trust. Trust is perhaps the greatest challenge amongst Bitcoin anonymization services, as many services that have existed appear to be outright scams, and even legitimate services sometimes disappear with user funds. We will report other observations and discussions at the end of the paper.
Ramiro Daniel Camino, Christof Ferreira Torres, Mathis Baden, Radu State
Ethereum smart contracts have recently drawn a considerable amount of attention from the media, the financial industry and academia. With the increase in popularity, malicious users found new opportunities to profit by deceiving newcomers. Consequently, attackers started luring other attackers into contracts that seem to have exploitable flaws, but that actually contain a complex hidden trap that in the end benefits the contract creator. In the blockchain community, these contracts are known as honeypots. A recent study presented a tool called HONEYBADGER that uses symbolic execution to detect honeypots by analyzing contract bytecode. In this paper, we present a data science detection approach based foremost on the contract transaction behavior. We create a partition of all the possible cases of fund movements between the contract creator, the contract, the transaction sender and other participants. To this end, we add transaction aggregated features, such as the number of transactions and the corresponding mean value and other contract features, for example compilation information and source code length. We find that all aforementioned categories of features contain useful information for the detection of honeypots. Moreover, our approach allows us to detect new, previously undetected honeypots of already known techniques. We furthermore employ our method to test the detection of unknown honeypot techniques by sequentially removing one technique from the training set. We show that our method is capable of discovering the removed honeypot techniques. Finally, we discovered two new techniques that were previously not known.
Ida MusiaĆkowska, Agata Kliber, Katarzyna ĆwierczyĆska, PaweĆ MarszaĆek
Purpose This paper aims to find, which of the assets: gold, oil or bitcoin can be considered a safe-haven for investors in a crisis-driven Venezuela. The authors look also at the governmental change of approach towards the use and mining of cryptocurrencies being one of the assets and potential applications of bitcoin as (quasi) money. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected the daily data (a period from 01 May 2014 to 31 July 2018) on the development of the following magnitudes: Caracas Stock Exchange main index: Ăndice BursĂĄtil de CapitalisaciĂłn (IBC) index; gold price in US dollars, the oil price in US dollars and Bitcoin price in bolivar fuerte (VEF) (LocalBitcoins). The authors estimated a threshold VAR model between IBC and each of the possible safe-haven assets, where the trigger variable was the IBC; then the authors modelled the residuals from the TVAR model using MGARCH model with dynamic conditional correlation. Findings The results show that that gold is a better safe-haven than oil for Venezuelan investors, while bitcoin can be considered a weak safe haven. Still, bitcoin can perform (to a certain extent) money functions in a crisis-driven country. Research limitations/implications Further research after the change of local currency from VEF into bolivar soberano might be looked at on the later stage. Practical implications The authors provide evidence on which of analysed asset is the best safe-haven for the investors acting in the time of the crisis. The evidence goes in line with other authorsâ findings, thus, the results might bring implications for investors of more universal character. Additionally, the result might be helpful for governments and/or monetary authorities while projecting institutional frameworks and conducting monetary policy. Social implications The unprecedented economic crisis in Venezuela was one of the factors that fuelled the mining and use of cryptocurrencies in the daily life of its citizens. Nowadays, the country is a leader in terms of the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in Latin America. The results show a potential application of bitcoin as a store of value or even means of payments in Venezuelan (or in other countries affected by the crisis). Originality/value The paper builds on the original data set collected by the authors and brings evidence from the models the authors constructed to verify, which asset is the best option for investors in hard times of the crisis. The authors add to the existing literature on financial assets, cryptocurrencies and behaviour of investors under different economic conditions.
Abstract Whether it is legally treated as a digital property, a commodity or a security, bitcoinâs identity crisis is mainly caused by its contradictions as a trustless monetary project. The paper argues that bitcoinâs trustlessness is a confusing concept that accounts for its legal and monetary troubles. As explicated by monetary sociologists and economists, money is based on a complex trust architecture. By questioning the interplay between code, trust and law in the monetary realm, the paper aims to enlighten the philosophy of bitcoinâs monetary project, the current trends, and some potential developments for bitcoin and distributed ledger technologies.
Through the experimental use of blockchain technology with biometric enrollment, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is seeking ways to give refugees control over their own individual identities and greater forms of self-determination within contexts of assistance and protection. The point is to empower refugees with identity-sovereignty that may greatly enhance their autonomy and dignity as persons. In this regard, UNHCR addresses core problems in refugee identification that have always undermined its institutional objectives. However, regardless of its successes in this regard, UNHCR's use of blockchain with these aims demonstrates a great misunderstanding of identity, as if identity were a mere property and disregards the social and political relational contexts in which identity is effectively mobilized with autonomy. Moreover, UNHCR ignores how refugeesâ identities are already richly formed for them. UNHCR's development of blockchain systems of identification have the effect of displacing the relational and social qualities of identity with a system of fixed coding over which refugees have no actual control. The uses of blockchain in this context serve the function of rendering the identities of persons seeking assistance and protection as refugees merely as ârefugeesâ within a manageable system over which UNHCR maintains sovereignty.
While cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have the potential to break traditional financial barriers, there are growing concerns about such currencies being used to fund illegal activities. Blockchain keeps the complete history of all transactions ever performed and each node replicates it. The humongous data it contains can be analyzed to gain useful insights about user transactions as well as the blockchain as a whole. In this paper, we propose an approach to parse and visualize the data of Bitcoin blockchain in a graph structure and carry out analysis that includes tracking and tracing, address clustering and entity tagging. We also try to find patterns in the data at a macro level to provide insights about the overall system. Thus, these efforts lead to foundation work for an analysis tool for getting insights on the coin flow of any financial system including cryptocurrencies.
Today, a new asset called cryptocurrency has entered the economic and financial realm of countries that have been able to stimulate governments to respond. Most governments have responded positively to these unsecured currencies, which are not monitored by any authority, and by considering these currencies as one of the complementary factors of the economic system, they have sought to develop this field and to enact principles. Of course, some countries have also reacted negatively to this currency, and some countries, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, have reacted differently. It is clear that no country has declared cryptocurrencies as official "money" and now these currencies are mostly used as a commodity exchange tool. However, despite the negative attitude of some governments to this issue, international organizations and communities have expressed their willingness to accept these currencies and are seeking to expand their payments. It is expected that the power of cryptocurrencies will overcome the resistance of the opposing governments and eventually return to their international natural situation and away from any sovereignty.
Edimara Mezzomo Luciano, Odirlei AntÎnio Magnagnagno, Rodrigo Couto de Souza, Guilherme Costa Wiedenhöft
The recent popularization of distributed ledger technologies, which is better known in the financial sector due to digital currencies, has led to the appearance of numerous applications developed for the blockchain environment. The goal of this research is to investigate how a blockchain can contribute to the reduction of the vulnerabilities to corruption in the Brazilian context. Two stages of a literature review have been performed. The first identified the vulnerabilities to corruption in the Brazilian context and the second one identified the effective uses of blockchain characteristics. Subsequently, a deductive analysis was performed, aiming to verify which of the Blockchain initiatives presented could be potentially applied in the fight against corruption. This study points out ways to mitigate fraud and other causes of corruption to help regain society's trust in state institutions in Brazil, which has been suffering over the years from corruption scandals. Additionally, a research agenda leading to anti-corruption studies has been discussed.
Bitcoin being a safe-haven asset is one of the traditional stories in the cryptocurrency community. However, during its existence and relevant presence, i.e., approximately since 2013, there has been no severe situation on the financial markets globally to prove or disprove this story until the COVID-19 pandemic. We study the quantile correlations of Bitcoin and two benchmarksâthe S&P 500 and VIXâand make comparison with gold as the traditional safe-haven asset. The Bitcoin safe haven story is shown and discussed to be unsubstantiated and far-fetched, while gold comes out as a clear winner in this contest even when a broader cryptocurrency index (CRIX) is considered.
The invention of the Internet has changed the way social resistance, revolutionary movements and terror groups are organized with new features such as loose network organization, netwars, social media campaigns, and lone wolf attacks. This article argues that blockchain technology will lead to more far-reaching changes in the organization of resistance to authority. Blockchain is a distributed ledger that records transactions using a consensus protocol, and when it meets objective conditions, it also enables smart contracts that execute transactions. Blockchain technology is not only a system for transferring value, but also it is a trustless system in which strangers can cooperate without the need for having to trust each other, as computer code governs their interactions. Blockchain will not only allow resistance/ terror organizations to easily receive donations globally, to have assets that a government can easily confiscate, and to disseminate censorship-resistant propaganda, but more importantly, to operate and cooperate across the world in a truly leaderless, coordinated, and highly decentralized fashion. Governments will need to be more proactive in the area of blockchain technology to mitigate some of the dangers to political stability that may emerge from it.
This study looks at the challenge that cryptocurrencies could pose to national security as it pertains to terrorism. The study begins by untangling what are cryptocurrencies before shifting attention to how criminal use cryptocurrencies and how terrorist could use cryptocurrencies. One of the key issues identified is the lack of an international regulatory regime, including, a definition of what are cryptocurrencies and how one could regulate the sector. By engaging in such research, this study seeks to encourage international society to focus more on cryptocurrencies and develop an effective, binding regulatory regime.
Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Abstract A vast digital ecosystem of entrepreneurship and exchange has sprung up with Bitcoinâs digital infrastructure at its core. We explore the worldwide spread of infrastructure necessary to maintain and grow Bitcoin as a system (Bitcoin nodes) and infrastructure enabling the use of bitcoins for everyday economic transactions (Bitcoin merchants). Specifically, we investigate the role of legal, criminal, financial, and social determinants of the adoption of Bitcoin infrastructure. We offer some support for the view that the adoption of cryptocurrency infrastructure is driven by perceived failings of traditional financial systems, in that the spread of Bitcoin infrastructure is associated with low trust in banks and the financial system among inhabitants of a region, and with the occurrence of country-level inflation crises. On the other hand, our findings also suggest that active support for Bitcoin is higher in locations with well-developed banking services. Finally, we find support for the view that bitcoin adoption is also partly driven by cryptocurrenciesâ usefulness in engaging in illicit trade.
Bitcoin has been one of the most interesting financial innovations in the last ten years. In this essay, we set out to discover why it has not spread as a medium of payment and how it has become a high-risk form of investment instead. We examine the operational mechanisms of bitcoin technology and explain the ideological background for the popularity of bitcoin. We conclude that, in its present form, bitcoin is not suitable to become a generally accepted medium of payment.