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This study aims to explain how cryptocurrency is leveraged for illicit purposes across the global financial system. Specifically, it establishes how cryptocurrency has been changing the nature of transnational and domestic money laundering (ML). It then assesses the effectiveness of conventional anti-money laundering (AML) policy and legislation against the proliferation of crypto laundering, using Canada as a critical case study.

Data was collected from court cases and secondary sources to build cross-case trends of cryptocurrency use in ML. Illicit International Political Economy forms the theoretical foundation for this study, whose contribution is situated in the current literature on crypto-ML.

This study finds that Bitcoin is common among crypto-money launderers, though most also use some form of alt-coin, and that the use of third-party currency exchanges is a prevalent method to create illicit funds and conceal proceeds of crime. The findings validate two hypotheses that illicit use of crypto is prevalent in the first two stages of ML, and that crypto is most often used in conjunction with other fiat currencies. Although law enforcement is improving on monitoring and understanding popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, alt-coins pose a significant challenge for criminal intelligence. New regulations for third-party currency exchanges are having a positive impact on curtailing crypto-laundering but are shown to be insufficient per se to contain the use of crypto in criminal activity.

This study contributes to a more robust understanding of the use of virtual currency in transnational and domestic ML. It contributes to an emerging body of literature on the role of technological change in enabling the global flow of illicit funds. It also informs public policy on virtual currency in general, and on AML regulation in Canada in particular.

This chapter attempts to clarify and describe the legal and regulatory framework for cryptocurrency with special focus on Malaysia and the threats that it poses from the anti-money laundering perspective. Currently, very few countries have legislations that regulate cryptocurrency. Nonetheless, the crazy surge in prices (to more than 20-folds at some point) has sent both legitimate investors and criminals flocking to cryptocurrencies. This chapter analyses and compares the official reports from various governments, writings of government officials, experts and scholars in journals and newspapers, interviews and draws conclusions on the legal framework of cryptocurrency, and money laundering challenges. The study notes that the decision of the US regulators in allowing Bitcoin futures to trade on major exchanges to be one of the reasons behind the sudden surge. The study also finds that the South Korean regulators’ approach in banning its financial institutions from dealing with virtual currency is a positive one. The chapter stresses that it is not adequate for regulators to warn the public to act with extreme caution and increase their understanding on the risks they take on if they choose to invest in cryptocurrencies. Instead, it is necessary to have comprehensive international and national laws and regulations for the control and management of cryptocurrencies. In addition, the anti-money laundering legal framework must be improved to cater to the new threats posed by cryptocurrency.

To analyze the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) final BitLicense regulations with respect to Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.

This article discusses the specific requirements outlined in the NYDFS’s regulations. The article goes on to provide background information on Bitcoin and virtual currencies and examines previous regulatory approaches prior to these regulations.

This article examines how the new regulations require all persons engaging in a virtual currency business to apply and obtain a BitLicense, and to maintain certain minimum standards and programs to help ensure customer protection, cyber-security and anti-money laundering compliance. Financial intermediaries that already are regulated by NYDFS under the New York Banking Law are not required to obtain a BitLicense if they are approved by NYDFS under their existing regulation to conduct virtual currency business activity.

This article contains insight and analysis into recent NYDFS regulations on a new currency type from attorneys experienced in financial services and regulatory matters.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings from a literature review, which aimed to identify previous studies evaluating cryptolaundering from a systems thinking perspective. The aim of this paper is to first confirm that cryptolaundering systems can indeed be defined as complex socio-technical systems and second to present the findings from a systematic review of the literature to determine the extent to which previous research has adopted a systems thinking perspective.

The study involved a SLR of studies published in the peer-reviewed literature between 2009 and 2018. Rasmussen’s risk management framework (Rasmussen, 1997) was used to evaluate the extent to which a systems thinking perspective had been adopted.

The cryptolaundering process is considered to be a complex socio-technical system. The review demonstrates that no previous studies have defined cryptolaundering as a complex socio-technical system or used systems thinking framework approach to evaluate how criminals, regulatory bodies or law enforcement entities understand processes and assess risk within cryptolaundering systems. It is argued that using such an approach to the cryptolaundering process would likely improve assessing criminal risk analyses of cryptolaundering and assist law enforcement and regulatory bodies with understanding risk management during the laundering of cryptocurrencies.

Future assessments of cryptolaundering using socio-technical system analytical processes may afford law enforcement and regulatory bodies the opportunity to improve intervention techniques and identify gaps in regulations and enforcement.

This paper aims to examine the framework for the regulation of crypto assets in Germany, the UK and Switzerland focusing on anti-money laundering (AML) laws. It comprehensively addresses the risks of crypto assets and the benefits along with the changes made to the existing laws to regulate cryptocurrency.

Qualitative data was analyzed to collect information for the case study and to challenge/examine the existing data and statistics.

The findings suggested that the AML laws are additionally modified to include the cryptocurrencies violations of the legislation, as it is the decentralized financial systems generating opportunities for crimes and terror financing. The moderate or mild laws were found in Switzerland following Germany and the UK has the most traditional and stringent laws of money laundering.

The paper has focused on the comparison of the three states in their AML laws comprehensively along with their attitude toward the crypto businesses.

Blockchains, also known as “distributed ledger technologies” (DLT) are perhaps the emerging innovation that, in the years leading up to and including 2019, is raising the highest expectations for HRM in the 4.0 business environment. In essence, a blockchain is a very specific type of database, with characteristics that made it the ideal application for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Within the context of digital- or e-HRM, there is potential to improve human resource management (HRM) processes using blockchains for employment screening, credential and educational verification, worker contracts and payments, among others, notwithstanding questions about its efficiency vis-à-vis conventional alternatives (Maurer, 2018; Zielinski, 2018). The research questions examined in this chapter include the following: What are the main characteristics of blockchains? Will they be adopted in a widespread form, specifically by HRM departments? Constructs from Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory (Rogers, 2003) are used to inform the Human Resources scholarly and practitioner communities; this robust theory may help companies allocate resources (e.g., budgets, personnel, managerial time, etc.) in an evidence-informed manner. As of this writing, very few blockchain applications, such as credential verification and incident reporting, seem to hold a strong potential for adoption.

Should we include cryptocurrency in risky portfolio investing? Bitcoin, given its status as the leader of cryptocurrencies and a speculative asset due to its non-dividend-paying trait and high volatility as well as high returns, poses an interesting question whether it can also be beneficial in a portfolio of risky assets. In order to find an answer, we revisit the conventional dual objective of minimizing risk and maximizing expected return for risky assets. Various models are tested to analyze the risk-return trade-off of risky portfolios including Bitcoin. Given an initial budget for a finite portfolio, the cumulative filtration yields the expected return and the covariance matrix. With the addition of Bitcoin, we compare the performance of the portfolio generated from the optimization models and technical analysis. The main implications are follows: (1) risk tolerance and diversification constraints are the key factors in portfolio optimization; (2) including cryptocurrency enhances portfolio returns; and (3) the Markowitz model (Kataoka’s and conditional value-at-risk models) recommends to fully weigh (unload) Bitcoin in (from) the portfolio.