About
My research project
Satoshi's Trojan Horse: can cryptocurrency be weaponized for use in money-laundering, terrorist-financing and sanctions evasion2009 saw the launch of the first-ever cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, based on a concept called the blockchain 鈥 an immutable, pseudo-anonymous and cryptographically secured record of transactions kept on a decentralised network.
A decade later, cryptocurrencies are a significant reality in the modern financial world, making major inroads into the areas once dominated by traditional payment methods.
Their key feature seems to be that they do not require any interface with the 鈥渞eal-world banking system鈥, allowing anyone with a device capable of accessing the internet the ability to exchange value or pay for goods or services with apparent anonymity.
They evolve rapidly and have a number of attributes making them attractive as a payment method to criminals as well as law-abiding citizens. The anonymous and decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies has, therefore, turned them into a serious threat, widely open to exploitation for nefarious purposes by criminals who often are early adopters of new technologies.
They therefore present complicated challenges for governments, institutions and law enforcement agencies, having been linked, inter alia, to crimes related to financing for assassinations, terrorism, corporate espionage, pornography, human trafficking, illegal narcotics and weapons.
My research sets out to demonstrate the clear interface between nascent technology like cryptocurrency and criminal utilisation of cutting-edge tech-based industries (as exemplified by ransomware attacks) as well as regulatory efforts to curb such nefarious uses.
Supervisors
2009 saw the launch of the first-ever cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, based on a concept called the blockchain 鈥 an immutable, pseudo-anonymous and cryptographically secured record of transactions kept on a decentralised network.
A decade later, cryptocurrencies are a significant reality in the modern financial world, making major inroads into the areas once dominated by traditional payment methods.
Their key feature seems to be that they do not require any interface with the 鈥渞eal-world banking system鈥, allowing anyone with a device capable of accessing the internet the ability to exchange value or pay for goods or services with apparent anonymity.
They evolve rapidly and have a number of attributes making them attractive as a payment method to criminals as well as law-abiding citizens. The anonymous and decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies has, therefore, turned them into a serious threat, widely open to exploitation for nefarious purposes by criminals who often are early adopters of new technologies.
They therefore present complicated challenges for governments, institutions and law enforcement agencies, having been linked, inter alia, to crimes related to financing for assassinations, terrorism, corporate espionage, pornography, human trafficking, illegal narcotics and weapons.
My research sets out to demonstrate the clear interface between nascent technology like cryptocurrency and criminal utilisation of cutting-edge tech-based industries (as exemplified by ransomware attacks) as well as regulatory efforts to curb such nefarious uses.