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Bitcoin: Perils of an Unregulated Global P2P Currency

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Security Protocols XXIII (Security Protocols 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 9379))

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Abstract

Bitcoin has, since 2009, become an increasingly popular online currency, in large part because it resists regulation and provides anonymity. We discuss how Bitcoin has become both a highly useful tool for criminals and a lucrative target for crime, and argue that this arises from the same essential ideological and design choices that have driven Bitcoin’s success to date. In this paper, we survey the landscape of Bitcoin-related crime, such as dark markets and bitcoin theft, and speculate about possible future possibilities, including tax evasion and money laundering.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Syed Taha Ali, Dylan Clarke & Patrick McCorry

Authors
  1. Syed Taha Ali
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  2. Dylan Clarke
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  3. Patrick McCorry
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Syed Taha Ali .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom

    Bruce Christianson

  2. Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Petr Švenda

  3. Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Vashek Matyáš

  4. University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom

    James Malcolm

  5. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

    Frank Stajano

  6. Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

    Jonathan Anderson

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Ali, S.T., Clarke, D., McCorry, P. (2015). Bitcoin: Perils of an Unregulated Global P2P Currency. In: Christianson, B., Švenda, P., Matyáš, V., Malcolm, J., Stajano, F., Anderson, J. (eds) Security Protocols XXIII. Security Protocols 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9379. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26096-9_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26096-9_29

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26095-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26096-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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