Crime, Innovation, and the Technology of Money

The emergence of Bitcoin has raised fundamental questions about traditional understandings of money. As the boundaries of what is accepted as money becomes increasingly blurred, so do the types of crime associated with the emergence of new monetary instruments. There is an urgent need to understand and clarify where cryptocurrencies fit within a wider regulatory landscape associated with other forms of money and digital technologies since these criminal activities confound traditional responses to crime, systems of social control, and regulation. To explore this issue, my research focuses on the relationships between money, monetary crime, and forms of regulation, and conducts its analysis across time. By doing so, this project’s original contribution will be to offer new perspectives on the challenges and legal uncertainties faced by cryptocurrencies today by drawing on the formative moments of historical forms of money. My research adopts a comparative-historical analysis looking at three case studies: banknotes forgery in the 19th century, credit card fraud in the 1970s and the use and misuse of Bitcoin in the 21st Century. This thesis proposes that a first step in dealing with these challenges is to bring to the fore and reposition the concept of monetary crime. This will enable a more targeted and granular analysis of criminal activities associated with new forms of money and liberate it from pre-defined labels. A second step is to level the playing field between cryptocurrencies and monetary crime by firstly accepting that cryptocurrencies should be clearly differentiated. Secondly, that cryptocurrencies should have their own hierarchy to exempt those which pose little risk from financial regulation. And thirdly, that cryptocurrencies would benefit from becoming aligned with payment services, financial services, and e-money regulations. This would bring into line existing legislation, and the protection they currently afford to forms of money, to cryptocurrencies.