Cryptocurrency-Related Cybercrime Types and Threats

Abstract

 This article emphasizes the types and threats of cybercrime related to cryptocurrencies. The necessity of implementing legislative regulations and invention of administrative control mechanisms in connection with the growth of the digital economy is also discussed. The presented article also elucidates features of cyber-cartels and their new instruments, such as “Auction Robots”, for committing illicit activities as the new type of the organized crime in a digital world. This work also focuses on describing certain categories of cybercrime, such as cryptojacking, which is a scheme to use people’s devices (computers, smartphones, tablets and etc.), without their consent or knowledge, to secretly mine cryptocurrency on the victim’s dime. To analyze the growth in demand, this work highlights the index of the whole capitalization and the exchange rates of the cryptocurrencies. Article also underlines the threat of the element of anonymity related to cryptocurrencies as the main instrument for criminals to either disguise terrorism financing or evade paying taxes. Some valuable examples of amendments developed and introduced by the US and Great Britain legislations to regulate crypto market and control tax evasion are also cited.