Prelims
Cryptomarkets: A Research Companion
ISBN: 978-1-83867-033-7, eISBN: 978-1-83867-030-6
Publication date: 25 October 2019
Citation
Martin, J., Cunliffe, J. and Munksgaard, R. (2019), "Prelims", Cryptomarkets: A Research Companion (Emerald Studies In Digital Crime, Technology and Social Harms), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. i-xv. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83867-030-620191008
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019 James Martin, Jack Cunliffe and Rasmus Munksgaard
Half Title Page
CRYPTOMARKETS
Series Page
EMERALD STUDIES IN DIGITAL CRIME, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL HARMS
Series Editors
James Martin, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Asher Flynn, School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Australia
Over the past two decades, digital technologies have come to permeate ever more aspects of contemporary life. This trend looks set to continue and has profound implications for the social sciences, particularly criminology, with technology-facilitated offences now arguably constituting the most dynamic and rapidly growing area of contemporary crime. Despite this development, the discipline of criminology has been slow to embrace the critical study of technology-facilitated offences and social harms, with most research conducted in this area still informed by a relatively narrow range of cybersecurity and applied criminological perspectives.
Emerald Studies in Digital Crime, Technology and Social Harms is part of a new movement within criminology and related disciplines to broaden this narrow focus and engage critically with new trends in technology-facilitated offending and victimisation. The book series uses a combination of critical criminological, socio-legal and sociological perspectives to consider a wide range of technology-facilitated offences and harmful social practices, ranging from digital surveillance, cyber-bullying and image-based sexual abuse through to global darknet drug trading.
Editorial Page
EDITORIAL BOARD
Asia Pacific
Professor Mark Andrejevic, Monash University, Australia
Professor Rod Broadhurst, Australian National University, Australia
Dr Akane Kanai, Monash University, Australia
Dr Monique Mann, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Dr Brady Robards, Monash University, Australia
Dr Campbell Wilson, Monash University, Australia
Europe
Professor Ross Coomber, University of Liverpool, UK
Dr Rutger Leukfeldt, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, Netherlands
Dr Adrian Scott, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Professor Majid Yar, Lancaster University, UK
North America
Associate Professor Michael Adorjan, University of Calgary, Canada
Professor Walter DeKeseredy, West Virginia University, USA
Professor Benoît Dupont, University of Montreal, Canada
Associate Professor David Maimon, Georgia State University, USA
Assistant Professor James Popham, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Title Page
CRYPTOMARKETS: A RESEARCH COMPANION
by
JAMES MARTIN
JACK CUNLIFFE
RASMUS MUNKSGAARD
United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China
Copyright Page
Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
First edition 2019
Copyright © 2019 James Martin, Jack Cunliffe and Rasmus Munksgaard. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing.
Reprints and permissions service
Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Author or the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-83867-033-7 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-83867-030-6 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-83867-032-0 (Epub)
Dedication Page
To the cryptomarket community.
Contents
| List of Figures and Tables | xiii |
| Acknowledgements | xv |
| Introduction | 1 |
| 1. A Modern-day History of Cryptomarkets | 5 |
| 1.1 Overview | 5 |
| 1.2 The ‘Calm’, or Anarchy, before the Storm | 7 |
| 1.3 Silk Road Marketplace – A Paradigm Change | 10 |
| 1.3.1 An Illegal Platform Economy | 11 |
| 1.3.2 Encryption and Anonymity | 12 |
| 1.3.3 Introducing Governance: Dispute Resolution and Escrow | 15 |
| 1.3.4 Politics, Community and Book Clubs | 17 |
| 1.3.5 ‘This Hidden Site Has Been Seized’ | 18 |
| 1.4 Downfall of a Monopoly | 19 |
| 1.4.1 Hacks, Scams and Chaos | 20 |
| 1.4.2 Fraudsters and Politics | 24 |
| 1.4.3 First as Tragedy, then as Farce (with Minor Adjustments) | 25 |
| 1.5 Onymous and Onwards | 26 |
| 1.5.1 Centralisation | 27 |
| 1.5.2 Localisation | 29 |
| 1.5.3 Increasing and Novel External Action | 30 |
| 1.6 Conclusion | 32 |
| 2. The Current State of the Cryptomarket Trade | 35 |
| 2.1 The State of Cryptomarkets | 35 |
| 2.1.1 Overall Market Size and Growth | 35 |
| 2.1.2 Cryptomarket Lifecycle | 38 |
| 2.1.3 Geographical Distribution and Regional Clustering | 44 |
| 2.1.4 Competition, Reputation and Sales | 50 |
| 2.2 What Is, and Is Not, on Cryptomarkets? | 52 |
| 2.2.1 Market Composition, Demand and Supply | 52 |
| 2.2.2 Non-drug Products | 56 |
| 2.2.3 Weapons | 57 |
| 2.2.4 Prohibited Goods and Services | 60 |
| 2.3 Impact on Conventional Drug Distribution Networks | 64 |
| 2.4 Harm Reduction | 66 |
| 2.5 Concluding Remarks | 72 |
| 3. Cryptomarket Research Methods, Ethics and Epistemologies | 75 |
| 3.1 Scope of the Chapter | 75 |
| 3.2 The Cryptomarket Environment | 77 |
| 3.3 Methods and Approaches Used To-date | 81 |
| 3.3.1 Qualitative Approaches | 83 |
| 3.3.2 Survey Data | 85 |
| 3.3.3 Digital Trace, from the Markets | 88 |
| 3.3.4 Digital Trace, from Elsewhere | 95 |
| 3.3.5 Test Buys | 97 |
| 3.4 Methodological Limitations and Implications | 99 |
| 3.4.1 Current Limitations and Other Possible Methods | 99 |
| 3.4.2 Importance of Interdisciplinary Work and Theory | 104 |
| 3.4.3 The Ever-present Issue of Ethics (and Law Enforcement) | 106 |
| 3.5 Methodological Summary | 110 |
| 4. Charting the Unknown and Future Directions | 115 |
| 4.1 Scope | 115 |
| 4.2 Where to Now? | 116 |
| 4.2.1 Continued Growth and Platform Stability | 116 |
| 4.2.2 Increasing Localisation | 117 |
| 4.2.3 A Natural Limit? | 118 |
| 4.2.4 Crackdowns, Volatility and External Shocks | 119 |
| 4.2.5 Increasing Intersection with Other Drug Markets | 121 |
| 4.2.6 Increased Offending Due to Exposure to Other Illicit Goods and Services | 123 |
| 4.2.7 Gentrification | 124 |
| 4.2.8 Harm Reduction | 127 |
| 4.2.9 A Summary of Predictions | 127 |
| 4.3 Concluding Remarks | 129 |
| Bibliography | 131 |
| Index | 161 |
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
| Fig. 1.1 | The Silk Road Seizure Banner which Greeted Visitors after 2 October 2013 | 19 |
| Fig. 3.1 | Two Landing Pages, One from Dream Market in October 2017 and One from Black Bank in May 2015 | 79 |
| Fig. 3.2 | Number of Publications and Cumulative Number of Citations from Web of Science/Scopus, 2013 to 2018 (as at 25 March 2019) | 82 |
| Fig. 4.1 | US Dollar Value of Bitcoin, July 2016 to July 2019 | 120 |
Table
| Table 2.1 | Cryptomarket Drug Composition from Soska and Christin (2015). | 54 |
Acknowledgements
This book was written with the generous contribution of a host of people whose insights, support and feedback are most gratefully appreciated. In particular, we would like to acknowledge and thank Jules Wilan and the rest of the publishing team at Emerald, Judith Aldridge, David Décary-Hétu, Nicholas Christin, Caleb and Gwern Branwen. Penultimately, we wish to thank the friends, families and loved ones of each of us for their support, patience and all of the other day-to-day acts of kindness upon which every author ultimately depends. Lastly, we wish to thank each of those members of the academy comprising the cryptomarket research community. This book is a reflection of your work more than ours and would not have been possible without you.