NAVAL
POSTGRADUATE
SCHOOL
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA
THESIS
CRYPTOCURRENCY AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY
by
Ryan L. Frebowitz
June 2018
Thesis Advisor: Shannon A. Brown
Second Reader: Erik J. Dahl
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CRYPTOCURRENCY AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY
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13. ABSTRACT (maximum 200 words)
Since Bitcoin’s release in late 2008, the cryptocurrency has grown and proven itself as a disruptive
technology, resistant to sovereign law and international financial regulations, and an alternative to the
sovereign state’s concept of fiat money. The Wild West nature of cryptocurrency has enabled a number of
individuals, criminal organizations, terrorist groups, and sovereign states to use Bitcoin, among other
cryptocurrencies, to avoid detection, interference, or punishment from regulatory agencies to commit actions
such as money laundering, trafficking narcotics, purchasing weapons, and bypassing international sanctions.
This thesis addresses the disruptive nature of cryptocurrency by asking what legislative options are available
to sovereign states to maximize the effectiveness of sovereign laws while limiting undesired cryptocurrency
use. To tackle this question, this thesis breaks down the legislative actions countries may take into three
categories—prohibition, regulation, and adoption—to investigate the benefits, limitations, and effects of
each policy. By examining the legislative actions of countries like China, the United States, and Russia, this
thesis finds that sovereign states have had limited success in preventing illicit cryptocurrency use; however,
without implementing a refined, multifaceted global regulatory standard on cryptocurrency transactions in
the near future, cryptocurrency will remain an unchecked means to transact on an international scale.
14. SUBJECT TERMS
cryptocurrency, cryptocurrencies, virtual currency, virtual currencies, Bitcoin, state
sovereignty, banning cryptocurrency, economic and financial regulations, adopting
cryptocurrency, blockchain
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123
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Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.
CRYPTOCURRENCY AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY
Ryan L. Frebowitz
Lieutenant, United States Navy
BS, The Citadel, 2011
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS IN SECURITY STUDIES
(HOMELAND SECURITY AND DEFENSE)
from the
NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
June 2018
Approved by: Shannon A. Brown
Advisor
Erik J. Dahl
Second Reader
Mohammed M. Hafez
Chair, Department of National Security Affairs
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ABSTRACT
Since Bitcoin’s release in late 2008, the cryptocurrency has grown and proven
itself as a disruptive technology, resistant to sovereign law and international financial
regulations, and an alternative to the sovereign state’s concept of fiat money. The Wild
West nature of cryptocurrency has enabled a number of individuals, criminal
organizations, terrorist groups, and sovereign states to use Bitcoin, among other
cryptocurrencies, to avoid detection, interference, or punishment from regulatory
agencies to commit actions such as money laundering, trafficking narcotics, purchasing
weapons, and bypassing international sanctions. This thesis addresses the disruptive
nature of cryptocurrency by asking what legislative options are available to sovereign
states to maximize the effectiveness of sovereign laws while limiting undesired
cryptocurrency use. To tackle this question, this thesis breaks down the legislative actions
countries may take into three categories—prohibition, regulation, and adoption—to
investigate the benefits, limitations, and effects of each policy. By examining the
legislative actions of countries like China, the United States, and Russia, this thesis finds
that sovereign states have had limited success in preventing illicit cryptocurrency use;
however, without implementing a refined, multifaceted global regulatory standard on
cryptocurrency transactions in the near future, cryptocurrency will remain an unchecked
means to transact on an international scale.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1
A. MAJOR RESEARCH QUESTION..........................................................1
B. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS ........................2
C. LITERATURE REVIEW .........................................................................3
1. Illicit Uses of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies ....................4
2. U.S. Regulation of Cryptocurrencies .........................................10
3. International Regulatory Propositions to Regulate
Cryptocurrencies..........................................................................13
D. POTENTIAL EXPLANATIONS ...........................................................16
E. RESEARCH DESIGN .............................................................................16
F. THESIS OVERVIEW AND DRAFT CHAPTER OUTLINE .............17
II. CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND THE BLOCKCHAIN ....................................19
A. BITCOIN AND “TRUST” ......................................................................21
B. SECURITY IN BITCOIN: HASH FUNCTIONS, MERKLE
TREES, AND THE BLOCKCHAIN......................................................22
C. DECENTRALIZED PUBLIC LEDGER AND THE BITCOIN
NETWORK: MINING AND NODES ....................................................26
D. TRANSACTING WITH BITCOIN: VIRTUAL WALLETS,
CRYPTOCURRENCY EXCHANGES, THE BITCOIN
ECOSYSTEM, AND OTHER CRYPTOCURRENCIES ....................31
1. Virtual Wallets and Transactions ..............................................31
2. Bitcoin Exchanges and the Cryptocurrency Ecosystem ...........33
3. Other Cryptocurrencies ..............................................................35
E. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................36
III. BANNING CRYPTOCURRENCIES ................................................................37
A. WHY STATES CHOOSE TO BAN VIRTUAL CURRENCIES ........37
1. Bitcoin and Crime ........................................................................38
2. Increase the State’s Capital Controls .........................................39
3. To Limit Civil Rights ...................................................................40
4. To Introduce a State-backed Cryptocurrency ..........................41
5. To Eliminate the Excessive Energy Consumption in
Mining ...........................................................................................42
B. MECHANISMS TO BAN VIRTUAL CURRENCIES ........................43
C. COUNTRIES THAT HAVE BANNED
CRYPTOCURRENCIES. .......................................................................44
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1. Countries That Have Banned Bitcoin: Bangladesh,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan, and Nigeria ...............................45
2. China .............................................................................................46
3. A Partial Ban in Iceland ...............................................................48
D. THE EFFECTS OF BANNING CRYPTOCURRENCY ......................49
1. China’s Impact on Cryptocurrencies ..........................................50
2. Other States’ Effect in Banning Cryptocurrencies ....................52
3. Banning Cryptocurrency Internationally ...................................53
E. CONCLUSION .........................................................................................53
IV. THE REGULATION OF CRYPTOCURRENCY ...........................................55
A. THE RATIONAL TO REGULATE VIRTUAL CURRENCIES .......56
1. Consumer Protection ...................................................................56
2. Money Laundering.......................................................................56
3. To Protect Monetary Policy ........................................................57
B. DIFFICULTIES OF REGULATING CRYPTOCURRENCIES ........57
C. METHODS OF REGULATING CRYPTOCURRENCY ...................58
1. Informational and Moral Suasion ..............................................59
2. The Regulation of Specific Stakeholders ...................................59
3. Interpretation of Existing Regulations.......................................59
4. The Creation of Broader Regulation..........................................60
D. SELECTIVE SUMMARY OF CURRENT
CRYPTOCURRENCY REGULATION ...............................................60
1. The United States .........................................................................60
2. Regulation in the European Union .............................................66
3. International Regulation .............................................................67
E. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................67
V. THE ADOPTION OF CRYPTOCURRENCIES BY SOVEREIGN
STATES ................................................................................................................69
A. REASONS FOR STATES TO USE CRYPTOCURRENCY ..............69
1. To Incorporate the Unbanked ....................................................69
2. Cheaper Transaction Costs .........................................................70
3. To Bypass Sanctions ....................................................................72
4. The Auditability of Cryptocurrency ..........................................72
B. STATES THAT ACCEPT, PLAN TO ADOPT, OR HAVE
ISSUED STATE-BACKED CRYPTOCURRENCIES ........................73
1. The Venezuelan Petro ..................................................................73
2. The Russian “CryptoRuble” .......................................................75
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3. Countries where Bitcoin Have Become the Trusted
Currency .......................................................................................78
4. The U.S. Fedcoin ..........................................................................80
5. Other Countries Studying or Developing
Cryptocurrencies..........................................................................82
C. POTENTIAL CHALLENGES TO ADOPTING
CRYPTOCURRENCY ............................................................................83
D. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................87
VI. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................89
A. FINDINGS ................................................................................................90
B. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................................92
1. Redefine Cryptocurrency ............................................................92
2. New International Standards on Cryptocurrency
Regulation .....................................................................................93
C. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ...................93
D. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................94
LIST OF REFERENCES ................................................................................................95
INITIAL DISTRIBUTION LIST .................................................................................105
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. A SHA256 Hash Generated from the Phrase “Naval Postgraduate
School” .......................................................................................................24
Figure 2. The Hash Structure of the Block Chain and Merkle Tree .........................25
Figure 3. Visual Differences between Centralized, Decentralized, and
Distributed Networks. ................................................................................27
Figure 4. A Chain of Transactions Depicting the Ownership of Bitcoins with
Public Keys and Private Keys ....................................................................32
Figure 5. “A Schematic Depiction of the Money Flow into and from
CryptoRuble” .............................................................................................77
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LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
AML anti-money laundering
BIS Bank for International Settlements
BSA Bank Secrecy Act
BTC Bitcoin
CEA Commodity Exchange Act
CFTC Commodity Futures Trading Commission
CPMI Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure
CRS Congressional Research Service
CTF counter-terrorist financing
DEA Drug Enforcement Agency
DVC decentralized virtual currencies
ECB European Central Bank
ESMA European Security and Markets Authority
EU European Union
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigations
FinCEN Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
ICO initial coin offering
IMF International Monetary Fund
IRS Internal Revenue Service
IS Islamic State
OFAC Office of Foreign Assets Control
PBoC Peoples Bank of China
TCO transnational criminal organizations
SEC Security and Exchange Commission
SHA secure hash algorithm
USD U.S. dollars
VC virtual currencies
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank both my thesis advisor, Dr. Shannon Brown, and second
reader, Dr. Erik Dahl, for their immeasurable guidance, time, expertise, and supervision
during the thesis process. Without the input and assistance of Dr. Brown and Dr. Dahl,
this academic achievement would not have been possible. To my girlfriend, Sophia,
thank you for your unwavering patience and support; you made this accomplishment
possible. I would also like to thank Dr. Carolyn Halladay for her leadership as my
program academic associate and her advice in pursuit of my thesis topic. Finally, I would
like to thank Carla, Chloe, Sasan, and Kate of the NPS Graduate Writing Center for their
tireless aid in brainstorming, editing, and altering my chapters as I struggled toward a
finished thesis.
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1
I. INTRODUCTION
A. MAJOR RESEARCH QUESTION
On October 31, 2008, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto released his proposal
for an electronic cash system known as Bitcoin.
1
In the nine years that have passed since
Bitcoin’s proposal, Bitcoin
2
and other cryptocurrencies have gained popularity in the
international community as a medium of transaction transcending current financial
institutions and cross-border regulations. Additionally, state governments, banks, and
investors have shown an increasing interest in using cryptocurrencies to enhance their own
financial capabilities. Furthermore, because the blockchain technology used in
cryptocurrency allows its users to “transact directly without the need for a trusted third
party,” the payee and recipient in transactions remain anonymous outside of their digital
wallet signature.
3
Despite the advantages that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies offer in the
marketplace, cryptocurrencies also generate new sets of obstacles for international
financial institutions and state governments regulating or monitoring transactions. The
pseudonymity
4
provided to the users by cryptocurrencies, coupled with the ease of
transaction, has proved to be a reliable tool for non-state and criminal networks pursuing
methods to bypass taxes, governmental regulations, and international sanctions.
The questions in this thesis are built upon the premise that cryptocurrencies offer
new and unprecedented challenges to sovereign states’ ability to regulate and enforce laws
governing its monetary policy, security, and trade; therefore, the state—and by extension
the international community—will endeavor to develop policies to increase sovereign
1
Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” (white paper, Bitcoin, 2008),
1, https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.
2
In the literature reviewed, there is no standard among authors on whether Bitcoin is capitalized or
not. For this thesis, the term Bitcoin is capitalized when discussing the cryptocurrency as a technology,
system, or network, while units of the cryptocurrency as measurements of wealth or transaction costs use a
lower case "b". This distinction is discussed in greater detail in Chapter II.
3
Nakamoto, 1–2.
4
The concept of pseudonymity (or pseudo-anonymity) is discussed in greater detail in Chapter II.
2
states’ control on the use of cryptocurrency. The questions this thesis seeks to answer are:
What options are available to the sovereign state to limit cryptocurrency’s capacity to
challenge domestic and international laws? What allows cryptocurrency to sidestep the
established financial order and enforcement institutions? What are the challenges sovereign
states face when introducing cryptocurrency legislation? Finally, as cryptocurrency
technology becomes more popular and countries begin developing their own blockchain-
based tools, what factors will inhibit or promote a sovereign state from developing their
own sovereign cryptocurrency?
B. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin challenge the post-Bretton Woods system of
financial control on worldwide transactions. The bitcoin currency is decentralized and
therefore is neither issued by any government nor stored in any one location. Decentralized
currencies like Bitcoin utilize a distributed public ledger, barring the need for a trusted third
party.
5
With cryptocurrencies, mints do not “print” cryptocurrency, banks are not required
to store cryptocurrency, and escrow agents are unnecessary to verify transactions. To many
consumers, decentralized cryptocurrency appears to be a superior method of transaction in
terms of efficiency and transaction cost; however, to a state, the removal of the trusted and
regulated third party carries significant drawbacks concerning government’s control of
commerce.
Since the emergence of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies have weakened sovereign
governments’ capacity to protect their citizens from harm because they sidestep the
regulations that monitor monetary transactions. During normal fiat
6
transactions, trusted
third parties like banks, credit card companies, or escrow agents restrict and report
transactions with ties to criminal or terrorist entities. As a result, individuals and
organizations transacting with fiat are required to register with trusted third parties,
5
Decentralized or distributed public ledgers are explained in Chapter II detailing how
cryptocurrencies function.
6
According to Investopedia, the definition of “Fiat money is currency that a government has declared
to be legal tender, but it is not backed by a physical commodity” (e.g., the U.S. dollar). Brent Radcliffe,
“Fiat Money,” Investopedia, November 20, 2003, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp.
3
providing personal information to assist authorities in tracking and prosecuting individuals
who commit illegal activities. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin bypass the difficulties in
transactions that state governments have put in place to prevent illegal actions.
Herein lies the problem. Cryptocurrencies do not operate within the existing
financial system, and the existing banking agreements and laws are unprepared to challenge
cryptocurrency use. To counter illicit use, sovereign states must create new laws across the
existing state and international financial institutions to limit cryptocurrency transactions.
However, in the development of new legislation, lawmakers will be forced to wrestle
between the limitations of sovereign laws on cryptocurrency and the needs of domestic and
homeland security. Likewise, the government’s pursuit of new laws will likely be
restrained by the protection of liberties guaranteed to the citizens the anonymity inherent
cryptocurrency’s blockchain. Therefore, the significance of this thesis’s research questions
is to highlight the evolving challenges that sovereign states will encounter as
cryptocurrencies become more mainstream. This thesis also analyzes the potential avenues
of interaction and partnership between the existing financial intuitions and regulatory
bodies as they seek to limit, regulate, and standardize transactions utilizing
cryptocurrencies.
C. LITERATURE REVIEW
The bulk of the literature available on cryptocurrency adoption is relatively new,
with the first scholarly articles débuting in the years following Bitcoin traction as a traded
commodity and method of transaction in 2011.
7
Most of the literature available also refers
solely to Bitcoin, or uses the terms cryptocurrency and Bitcoin interchangeably. This is
because Bitcoin is the first virtual currency to rely on cryptography as a means of security
while implementing a public distributed ledger to track transactions (Chapter II of this
thesis explains both ideas).
8
As of early 2018, there are nearly 1500 public
7
Paul Vigna and Michael Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are
Challenging The Global Economic Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015), 83–84.
8
Arvind Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016), 1, 242.
4
cryptocurrencies, totaling a market cap of more than half a trillion dollars.
9
As noted in a
2017 study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternate Finance, there are “over 300 academic
articles on the various aspects of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies over the past several
years.”
10
This thesis’s literature review surveys various authors’ studies and opinions
relating to the illicit history of cryptocurrency and the role states and international
institutions should take regarding cryptocurrency transactions.
The first section briefly covers the literature available on the historical use of
Bitcoin as a means to conduct illegal transactions and bypass financial regulations. This
section outlines some of the encounters law enforcement has had with cryptocurrency, and
the methods cryptocurrency users have employed to bypass existing laws. The second
section builds on the history of illegal activity using cryptocurrency and presents the
literature detailing how the United States can potentially regulate cryptocurrencies within
its existing legal frameworks. The third and final section expands upon the second by
examining literature attempting to tackle cryptocurrency implementation on a global scale
through the use of international financial institutions and international agreements.
1. Illicit Uses of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies
A survey of recent research establishes that the lack of regulation in cryptocurrency
has become a homeland security concern in addition to being a criminal one. In academia,
there is little debate among scholars that individuals use cryptocurrencies to circumvent
laws and commit illegal activities. Various publications from U.S. government reports and
their various funded research groups to scholars and writers following the emerging
cryptocurrency trends around the globe all acknowledge this. Furthermore, because
cryptocurrency offers a combination of trust in value, anonymity, lack of regulation, and
9
“Cryptocurrency Market Capitalizations,” CoinMarketCap, accessed March 5, 2018,
https://coinmarketcap.com/.
10
Garrick Hileman and Michel Rauchs, Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study (Cambridge:
University of Cambridge Centre for Alternate Finance, 2017), https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/
user_upload/research/centres/alternative-finance/downloads/2017-global-cryptocurrency-benchmarking-
study.pdf, 5.
5
transferability across borders, the authors who study cryptocurrency’s impact to the state
vary in their area of expertise.
The U.S. government has keenly noticed the capabilities virtual currencies provide
to the illicit marketplace, but most of the government backed public research has just
emerged in the past five years. The research conducted by the U.S. government agencies
and various U.S. funded research groups tends to concentrate on the future potential threats
that cryptocurrency may pose to the state’s ability to impose financial restrictions, tax, and
protect its citizens; however, this research has yet to reach a consensus of long-term
solutions. As a 2015 Congressional Research Service report states, “in Congress, interest
in virtual currencies is at the exploratory stage.”
11
The 2015 National Terrorist Financing
Risk Assessment report by the U.S. Treasury lists “new payment systems … like Virtual
Currencies (VC) such as Bitcoin and other emerging payment technologies” as potential
future terrorist financing threats.
12
Additionally, the 2017 National Drug Threat
Assessment produced by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) writes that “TCO
[transnational criminal organizations] are … increasingly using virtual currencies due to
their anonymizing nature and ease of use.”
13
Likewise, the RAND corporation’s National
Security Implications of Virtual Currency highlights various methods how
cryptocurrencies could “enhance non-state actor’s political and/or economic power ... by
means of illicit transfer, fundraising, or money laundering.”
14
Cryptocurrencies’ connection to the illicit marketplace first received attention after
the development of the Silk Road in 2013, a website only accessible through the Dark Web,
11
Edward Murphy, Maureen Murphy, and Michael Seitzinger, Bitcoin: Questions, Answers, and
Analysis of Legal Issues, CRS Report No. R43339 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service,
2015), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43339.pdf, 10.
12
Adam Szubin, National Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment (Washington, DC: Department of the
Treasury, 2015), https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/terrorist-illicit-finance/Documents/
National%20Terrorist%20Financing%20Risk%20Assessment%20%E2%80%93%2006-12-2015.pdf, 56–
57.
13
Drug Enforcement Administration, 2017 National Drug Threat Assessment, DEA-DCT-DIR-040-
17 (Washington, DC: Drug Enforcement Administration, 2017), https://www.dea.gov/docs/DIR-040-
17_2017-NDTA.pdf, 130.
14
Joshua Baron et al., National Security Implications of Virtual Currency: Examining the Potential
for Non-State Actors Development (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2015), ix–x,
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1231.html.
6
which is the part of the web users need special software to access and thus remain
anonymous.
15
Nicolas Christin writes that during the Silk Road’s period of operation
between 2011 and 2013, it acted as an “infrastructure for sellers and buyers to conduct
transactions ... similar to Amazon Marketplace, Craigslist, or eBay,” but for both illegal
and legal goods.
16
Christin estimates the Silk Road earned a monthly income of 1.2 million
U.S. dollars (USD), stating that the dark website offered a variety of goods, mostly
providing legal and illegal drugs, which the site categorized into 220 distinct groups for
the ease of the dark website’s users.
17
Steven Brown directs his research toward how illegal use of Bitcoin affects the
capability of state’s law enforcement, arguing that Bitcoin “is the currency of choice for
cybercriminals and Darknet entrepreneurs.”
18
He writes that the lack of regulation in
cryptocurrency transactions has created “attractive opportunities for criminal exploitation,”
and he lists a varying field of illegal activities available to Darknet users where Bitcoin is
the primary method of payment.
19
He also lists the examples of illegal services transacting
in bitcoins, including the laundering of fiat currencies, counterfeiting U.S. dollars,
purchasing illegal drugs, and hiring assassination services.
20
While the majority of literature expects to see increased incidents of terrorists using
cryptocurrency, the actual capability of individuals and non-state actors to use virtual
currencies to support terrorism is contested among academics. Scholars like William
Mendel and Peter McCabe believe cryptocurrency is a current homeland security issue.
They argue that Bitcoin offers new challenges to the U.S. mission to counter support and
financing of the Islamic State (IS) that extends worldwide, citing a 2015 incident when the
15
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 84.
16
Nicolas Christin, “Traveling the Silk Road: A Measurement Analysis of a Large Anonymous
Online Marketplace,” in Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW
’13) (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: ACM, 2013), 214.
17
Christin, 222, 216–218.
18
Steven Brown, “Cryptocurrency and Criminality: The Bitcoin Opportunity,” The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles 89, no. 4 (2016): 336.
19
Brown, 327–328.
20
Brown, 328.
7
U.S. resident Ali Amin was prosecuted for providing a “how-to” guide to support IS using
Bitcoin as the method of finance.
21
Similarly, highlighting the Islamic State’s use of bitcoin
“Sadaqa,” or donations, and an IS linked address worth $3 million, Lewis Sanders argues
there is a connection between IS and bitcoin.
22
Micah Zenko also agrees that
cryptocurrencies are becoming more widespread among terrorist groups, emphasizing
recent incidents of illicit transactions like the 2017 transfer of bitcoins to Islamist militants
in Indonesia.
23
On the other hand, some experts argue that the cryptocurrency-terrorist threat is not
yet mainstream. Despite a growing number of incidents where terrorist organizations have
used cryptocurrency as a means of finance, David Manheim et al. write, “[a]t present,
cryptocurrencies are hardly a go-to solution for terrorist financiers.”
24
In their report for
the RAND Corporation, Baron et al. provide a comprehensive analysis of the methods a
non-state actor can use virtual currency, including the development, deployment,
manipulation, and exploitation of virtual currencies to further non-state objectives.
25
They
report that non-state actors face significant hurdles in using or implementing virtual
currencies, especially when powerful opposing states seek to disrupt them.
26
Like Manheim et al., Yaya Fanusie of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
writes that while terrorists have been mostly unsuccessful in their cryptocurrency
endeavors, they will continue their attempts to use cryptocurrency. In his 2016 article,
Fanusie found that the Ibn Taymiyya Media Center, an online media organization offering
explosive training and support for the Islamic State (IS), ran “a social media fundraising
21
William Mendel and Peter McCabe, eds., SOF Role in Combating Transnational Organized Crime
(MacDill Air Force Base, FL: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2016), http://cco.ndu.edu/
Portals/96/Documents/books/JSOU%20SOF/JSOU16_MendelMcCabe_CTOC_final.pdf, 101.
22
Lewis Sanders, “Bitcoin: Islamic State’s Online Currency Venture,” DW, September 20, 2015,
http://www.dw.com/en/bitcoin-islamic-states-online-currency-venture/a-18724856.
23
Micah Zenk, “Bitcoin for Bombs,” Council on Foreign Relations (blog), August 17, 2017,
https://www.cfr.org/blog/bitcoin-bombs.
24
David Manheim et al., “Are Terrorists Using Cryptocurrencies?,” Foreign Affairs, April 21, 2017,
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-04-21/are-terrorists-using-cryptocurrencies.
25
Baron et al., National Security Implications,” 19, 36.
26
Baron et al., 67.
8
campaign that is the first publicly verifiable instance of a terrorist group using bitcoin.”
27
He later reexamines terrorists’ attempt to use cryptocurrency in his December 2017 article,
identifying numerous bitcoin “donation” addresses linked to IS and al-Qaeda backed
groups advertised on both the Internet and Dark Web.
28
Moreover, he points out that
Bitcoin is an attractive means of fundraising because of the assumed anonymity; however,
the transactions stored on the public ledger provides an easy audit trail that traces the
donation back to the source.
29
Fanusie concludes that while bitcoin “is still not a reliable
source of funding for jihadists . . . this may change in the future” and points to the future
potential for the acceptance of a new cryptocurrency offering more privacy or the creation
of “online [cryptocurrency] exchanges that do not adhere to money laundering laws.”
30
Rogue states seeking to bypass international sanctions have also demonstrated
capacity to use cryptocurrency. In late 2017, White House Homeland Security Advisor
Tom Bossert accused North Korea for the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack, a cyber-
attack that held infected computer systems hostage until the victim sent a payment of
Bitcoin to a specific bitcoin address.
31
Nir Kshetri and Jeff Voas note that North Korea
earned an estimated 120,000 USD in bitcoin, emphasizing that although most infected
device users did not pay into the ransomware attack, the propensity for greater ransomware
attacks using cryptocurrency is likely to increase in the future.
32
Patrick Tucker argues that North Korea’s efforts to use cryptocurrency as an illegal
source of income extends past simple ransomware attacks. He points out that North Korea
27
Yaya Fanusie, “The New Frontier in Terror Fundraising: Bitcoin,” The Cipher Brief (blog), August
24, 2016, https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/the-new-frontier-in-terror-fundraising-bitcoin.
28
Yaya Fanusie, “Terrorist Networks Eye Bitcoin as Cryptocurrency’s Price Rises,” The Cipher Brief
(blog), December 21, 2017, https://www.thecipherbrief.com/terrorist-networks-eye-bitcoin-
cryptocurrencys-price-rises.
29
Fanusie.
30
Fanusie.
31
Thomas P. Bossert, “It’s Official: North Korea Is behind WannaCry,” Wall Street Journal,
December 18, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-official-north-korea-is-behind-wannacry-
1513642537, sec. Opinion.
32
Nik Kshetri and Jeff Voas, “Do Crypto-Currencies Fuel Ransomware?,” IT Professional 17, no.
Sep/Oct 2017 (2017): 3, 6.
9
was able to gain access illegally to South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017 by
using phishing emails to obtain log in credentials.
33
Tucker states that North Korea can
transfer the stolen cryptocurrency from the compromised exchange to other exchanges
worldwide and then exchange the stolen cryptocurrency for more privacy based coins in
an effort to launder the cryptocurrency, eventually withdrawing the funds in the form of
fiat like the U.S. dollar or South Korean won. Because of becoming an intermediary
between cryptocurrency and government backed fiat, Tucker explains, exchanges and their
owners are under increased scrutiny and face shutdown or arrest for allowing illicit
activities.
34
The Russian Federation has also shown interest in the creation of a government
backed cryptocurrency. Olivia Capozzalo writes that the Russian intentions for the
development could be linked to bypass western sanctions Russia and is currently
investigating possible implementation strategies using an official government working
group.
35
Like Capozzalo, Shannon Liao is skeptical of Russian intention and sudden
interest in cryptocurrency, highlighting Vladimir Putin’s decree of five new presidential
orders on 10 October 2017, which “demanded officials set up a legal framework to handle
digital currencies … that could solidify cryptocurrency acceptance within the Russian
Federation.”
36
Liao believes the development of the new Russian regulation would
significantly increase regulations of cryptocurrency within the state, but she cites authors
who have stated “fostering cryptocurrencies could be a means for Russian official’s to skirt
sanctions.”
37
She concludes that although Russia has a long history of crime and money
33
Patrick Tucker, “Russia, N. Korea Eye Bitcoin for Money Laundering, Putting It on a Crash Course
with Regulators,” Defense One, December 15, 2017, http://www.defenseone.com/technology/
2017/12/russia-n-korea-eye-bitcoin-money-laundering-putting-it-crash-course-regulators/144598/.
34
Tucker.
35
Olivia Capozzalo, “Putin Adviser Says ‘CryptoRuble’ Will Circumvent Sanctions, Government
Remains Divided,” Cointelegraph, January 2, 2018, https://cointelegraph.com/news/putin-adviser-says-
cryptoruble-will-circumvent-sanctions-government-remains-divided.
36
Shannon Liao, “Inside Russia’s Love-Hate Relationship with Bitcoin,” The Verge, October 31,
2017, https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/31/16387042/russia-putin-bitcoin-regulation-ethereum-
blockchain-technology.
37
Liao.
10
laundering, “Russia also stands to legitimately benefit from the legalization of
cryptocurrency.”
38
Chris Telley is substantially less optimistic on the development of Russian
cryptocurrency, believing Russia’s development of cryptocurrency laws and a state backed
cryptocurrency likely has sinister intentions.
39
Highlighting Russia’s historical use of
emerging technology, like social media, to disrupt and influence foreign affairs, Telley
asserts that the Russian development of cryptocurrency will become another asset in
Putin’s arsenal of state and economic manipulation aimed at promoting Russian influence
globally.
40
Telley also comments that concerning the existing economic system, “few
solutions exist to counter the specific capabilities of an adversary cryptocurrency network,”
and he argues that the United States must urgently move to develop its own capabilities
within the digital economic environment to protect U.S. national interests in the future.
41
2. U.S. Regulation of Cryptocurrencies
To understand the options available to sovereign governments like the United States
to regulate cryptocurrencies, it is worthwhile to examine the literature detailing the
opinions of scholars on the legal avenues the United States might take. This section
presents a selection of peer-reviewed sources taking various legal approaches to regulate
cryptocurrency. The majority of scholars who have studied the cryptocurrency movement
since its debut believe that the current American legal system has been slow to adapt to the
fast-moving digital world of virtual currencies and is ill prepared to prosecute illegal
activity involving cryptocurrency under the existing framework of U.S. laws. Moreover,
the avenues available to the United States for controlling or preventing illicit
cryptocurrency use is widely debated among law scholars. As stated by Rainer Bohme et
al., “a key challenge for prospective regulators is where to impose constraints…. While
38
Liao.
39
Chris Telley, “A Coin for the Tsar: The Two Disruptive Sides of Cryptocurrency,” Small Wars
Journal, January 15, 2018, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/a-coin-for-the-tsar-the-two-disruptive-
sides-of-cryptocurrency.
40
Telley, 5.
41
Telley, 5.
11
Bitcoin now appears to be subject to regulatory oversight, the authority of regulators face
certain limits.”
42
For instance, many scholars point to the difficulty of controlling Bitcoin
within the United States without imposing on citizens’ rights to privacy or unlawful
searches and seizures.
One proposal to combat the illicit use of cryptocurrency is to expand the legal
capability of law enforcement agencies to investigate illicit cryptocurrency use. Alice
Huang argues that the current federal criminal subpoena standards are ill-equipped to
prosecute the illicit uses of cryptocurrency, and she proposes enhancing the U.S. judicial
power to “create a new criminal subpoena standard, modeled from current e-discovery
laws, that targets criminal Bitcoin use.”
43
She also argues that the current subpoena process
requires the government to “go through millions of transactions and hundreds of thousands
of user accounts in order to pinpoint specific targets.”
44
Finally, she states that increasing
the subpoena powers could become problematic because the new laws could infringe upon
users who would want to maintain the anonymity and must therefore be carefully crafted
to prevent governmental overstep.
45
Similarly, Danton Bryans focuses on the interaction between Bitcoin and anti-
money laundering (AML) laws, stating, “Bitcoin represents a disruptive financial
technology that many AML and money transmitter statutes are ill prepared to deal with.”
46
Although Bryans asserts, “Bitcoin might be seen as illegal because it attempts to assume
powers expressly reserved to the federal government under the U.S. Constitution,” he
believes that emerging cryptocurrencies should continue to exist unhampered to its users.
47
Bryans instead argues that the most effective method of regulation is the regulation of the
42
Rainer Bohme et al., “Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance,” The Journal of
Economic Perspectives 29, no. 2 (Spring 2015): 231.
43
Alice Huang, “Reaching within Silk Road: The Need for a New Subpoena Power That Targets
Illegal Bitcoin Transactions,” Boston College Law Review 56, no. 5 (December 2015): 2097, 2119–2122.
44
Huang, 2120.
45
Huang, 2123–2124.
46
Danton Bryans, “Bitcoin and Money Laundering: Mining for an Effective Solution,” Indiana Law
Journal 89, no. 1, Article 13 (2014): 472, https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=11100&context=ilj.
47
Bryans, 447.
12
fiat-to-cryptocurrency exchanges, since exchanges already fall under existing money
transmitter laws and require exchange users to identify themselves when they register and
use exchanges.
48
Like Bryans, Jonathan Turpin believes that the regulation of crypto-exchanges
would be “the simplest and most likely route.”
49
Turpin writes that transactions using
Bitcoin are not illegal but “operate in a legal gray area…. [where] no U.S. law currently on
the books explicitly applies to Bitcoin.”
50
Due to the international applicability of using
Bitcoin as a currency, he believes that Bitcoin will continue to grow unless the world
governments move to regulate cryptocurrency; however, he recommends against an
outright external restriction on cryptocurrencies. Turpin instead offers that the “wisest
approach that governments might take to Bitcoin is to attempt to regulate the transactions
that take place in Bitcoin (BTC), rather than the system itself,” arguing that a method of
regulation inside of the blockchain would be far more effective than external regulation.
51
Omri Marian offers a unique, less invasive solution a state could implement to
regulate bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies, which incorporate a visible public ledger.
52
Marian’s conceptual framework exploits the cryptocurrencies’ public ledger—wherein
every historical transaction is compiled—as a means of tracking licit and illicit
cryptocurrency transactions. He argues that if the government were to enact an “elective
anonymity tax” that enforces high taxes on merchants who transact in cryptocurrency with
unknown users but offers tax relief to transactions with preidentified users, cryptocurrency
users would be incentivized to register their identity.
53
As a result, customers who have
been verified for the tax relief would reveal their identity through the process of associating
48
Bryans.
49
Jonathan Turpin, “Bitcoin: The Economic Case for a Global, Virtual Currency Operating in an
Unexplored Legal Framework,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 21, no. 1 (2014): 364.
50
Turpin, 352–353.
51
Turpin, 367.
52
Omri Marian, “A Conceptual Framework for the Regulation of Cryptocurrencies,” University Of
Chicago Law Review 82, no. 53 (2015): 55–68, https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/695/.
53
Marian, 63–64.
13
a name to their digital wallet, providing the businesses and regulatory bodies with a history
of all transactions to and from that user.
Marian’s proposed system has the unique advantage of permitting anonymous users
to continue to use cryptocurrency to transact under regulation at the penalty of an additional
financial fee imposed by the marketplace. He argues that law-abiding citizens will have no
need to conceal their identity, and when these citizens are presented with the financial
benefits of registration, they will register en masse, making the entire cryptocurrency
network less anonymous while highlighting illicit transactions.
54
Marian concludes,
“under such a framework, legitimate users [will] passively participate in regulatory efforts
to prevent illicit behavior.”
55
3. International Regulatory Propositions to Regulate Cryptocurrencies
The opinions of those debating the regulation of cryptocurrency in the international
community fall on a spectrum between international oversight and adoption. On one end,
the critics of cryptocurrency argue that cryptocurrencies threaten the existing financial
order and state security and therefore need to be heavily regulated or prohibited through a
framework of international governments. The cryptoanarchists and cypherpunks are on the
other extreme, and they argue that the technology herald within the cryptocurrency
movement will force political, financial, or social revolutions in the governments of the
world. These opinions are both extreme, and the vast majority of scholarly views argue for
minor regulation of cryptocurrency rather than prohibition and revolution.
Fiammetta Piazza believes that regulating cryptocurrency requires a coordination
between international organizations to set the minimum for cryptocurrency regulation for
sovereign states. She writes, “Given Bitcoin’s great potential of being exploited not only
by financial criminals but also Dark Web traffickers, an international agreement should be
implemented.”
56
Additionally, she argues that governments will need to establish
54
Marian, 63.
55
Marian, 63–64.
56
Fiammetta Piazza, “Bitcoin in the Dark Web: A Shadow over Banking Secrecy and a Call for
Global Response,” Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 26, no. 3 (2017): 545.
14
minimum international standards of registration that would lessen the anonymity in
cryptocurrency but provide individual nations with the sovereign right to increase the
regulation of cryptocurrencies as they see fit.
57
According to Piazza, these standards would
“render Bitcoin less attractive to both Web and Dark Web criminals.”
58
Nicholas Plassaras proposes that cryptocurrencies need to be reined in
internationally through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stating Bitcoin “poses an
increasingly serious threat to the stability of the foreign currency exchange market and, by
extension, international commerce.”
59
He believes that when cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin
gain worldwide adoption, they can be used as a “speculative attack” on foreign currency
and destabilize nations.
60
To counter Bitcoin’s threat of a speculative attack, Plassaras
offers two solutions. First, the IMF could require member countries to purchase and
contribute a percentage of bitcoins as part of each country’s required quota, thereby
allowing the IMF to counter a Bitcoin speculative attack and stabilize individual
countries.
61
Second, the IMF could simply purchase its own supply of bitcoins to be placed
in reserve should a speculative attack occur.
62
While Plassaras is not alone in his fear of cryptocurrency’s disruption of the
international financial system, the IMF’s leadership dismisses the risks of virtual currency
to the international financial order. In a speech to the Bank of England, the IMF managing
director, Christine Lagarde, states,”[f]or now, virtual currencies such as Bitcoin pose little
or no challenge to the existing order of fiat currencies… because they are too volatile, too
risky, too energy intensive,… and not yet scalable.”
63
Similarly, the IMF’s book Digital
57
Piazza, 545–46.
58
Piazza, 545–46.
59
Nicholas Plassaras, “Regulating Digital Currencies: Bringing Bitcoin within the Reach of the IMF,”
Chicago Journal of International Law 14, no. 1, article 12 (2013): 396.
60
Plassaras, 398–400.
61
Plassaras, 402–405.
62
Plassaras, 406.
63
Christine Lagarde, “Central Banking and Fintech—A Brave New World?” (speech at Bank of
England Conference, London, September 29, 2017), https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/
2017/09/28/sp092917-central-banking-and-fintech-a-brave-new-world.
15
Revolutions in Public Finance offers a similar conclusion by dismissing the potential
destabilizing effect of cryptocurrency adoption, proposing that blockchain is a tool for
countries to amplify their respective capabilities of fiat currencies and data tracking.
64
However, the emergence of distributed ledger cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, has
also gained the attention of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The report on
digital currencies produced by the BIS’s Committee on Payments and Market
Infrastructures (CPMI) provides a detailed analysis of potential benefits and drawbacks
that digital distributed ledger currencies offer as a method of transaction.
65
The report also
provides a list of potential regulatory actions a state or its central bank can take to control
or weaken cryptocurrencies, and it analyzes a list of countries that have applied virtual
currency regulations current to 2015.
66
https://libguides.nps.edu/citation/rules-chicago-nb
Paul Vigna and Michael Casey argue that Bitcoin will not tear down the existing
Westphalian order upon which the world economy is built but instead will become a
challenger and provide the “banking state . . . [with] some much-needed competition and
discipline forced upon it.”
67
They explain there are three obstacles that Bitcoin, or any
other cryptocurrency, must surmount to achieve the goal of widespread adoption. First,
Bitcoin is stifled with the rocky history of scams and illegal activity, and its price tends to
be volatile. Second, the deflationary nature of Bitcoin promotes hoarding over spending,
and if adopted over the existing inflationary financial system, it could create another “Great
Depression.”
68
Finally, if preexisting trusted companies developed their own direct
competitor to Bitcoin with nearly the same benefits, consumers would likely prefer the
trusted name-brand companies resulting in a decrease use of Bitcoin.
64
Sanjeev Gupta et al., Digital Revolutions In Public Finance (Washington, DC: International
Monetary Fund, 2017), 173–196.
65
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Digital Currencies (Basel, Switzerland: Bank
for International Settlements, 2015), https://www.bis.org/cpmi/publ/d137.pdf.
66
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Digital Currencies, 12–13.
67
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 311.
68
Vigna and Casey, 294.
16
D. POTENTIAL EXPLANATIONS
Sovereign states have a host of legislative actions available to them to control
cryptocurrencies; however, each state has unique challenges to implementing and
enforcing these options. One potential challenge to applying laws on cryptocurrency is a
state’s capability to actually enforce policy against cryptocurrency, since cryptocurrency
creation and transactions promote anonymity and complicates the identification and
prosecution of offenders. Another probable challenge of a sovereign state control is if the
legislation regarding cryptocurrency is compatible in the international community. In other
words, a policy administering a total ban of cryptocurrency might be unenforceable if a
host of other geographically near, or economically influential nations, permit the use of
cryptocurrency by citizens.
From the ideas proposed by the authors in this thesis’s literature review, it appears
that the state and international financial institutions have three broad—but not separate—
options available to control cryptocurrency. The three options are to ban cryptocurrency
use; to instill regulations to control cryptocurrency use at level of the exchange or user; and
to adopt cryptocurrencies as an accepted means of transaction. This thesis expounds upon
the three options to determine what policies states could implement to control
cryptocurrency and restrict illicit transactions as well as the incurring challenges and
drawbacks of each action.
E. RESEARCH DESIGN
To achieve a comprehensive analysis of the methods that sovereign states and
international institutions could take to regulate cryptocurrency, this thesis surveys a
combination of the available scholarly literature and historical incidents of government
restrictions on cryptocurrency to draw conclusions about how effective controls on
cryptocurrency are. This thesis does this by separating the potential avenues of controlling
cryptocurrency into three groups (regulation, ban, and adoption) and analyzing methods of
how the state and international community could implement controls.
17
F. THESIS OVERVIEW AND DRAFT CHAPTER OUTLINE
The first chapter of this thesis consists of the thesis question and its importance, the
literature review, and chapter outline. The second chapter is dedicated to describing the
functionality of cryptocurrency, including the innovative technology that makes it an
attractive method of transaction. Also, this chapter dissects blockchain technology into its
key parts as a means to present the advantages, disadvantages and weaknesses inherent in
blockchain based cryptocurrency.
It is this thesis’s goal to analyze the potential impact that cryptocurrency has on the
state’s sovereignty and they methods the state and international institutions could take to
manage cryptocurrency implementation. To do this, this thesis divides the potential actions
a state may take into the last three chapters, Chapter III Banning Cryptocurrency, Chapter
IV Regulating Cryptocurrency, and Chapter V Adopting Cryptocurrency. Chapter III
focuses on listing the potential methods that states may take to regulate cryptocurrency and
analyzes each method’s effectiveness. Chapter IV lists and analyzes how different levels
of a ban on cryptocurrency could affect a state’s capability to prevent illicit activity and the
consequences resulting from extreme measures. Chapter V discusses the possible
implementation of cryptocurrency, either currently existing or those developed in the
future, and the resulting impact that a government backed cryptocurrency could have on
the international economic system. This thesis concludes with the analysis of each avenue
the state and international community may take, as well as this thesis’s opinion and ideas
on potential future research.
18
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19
II. CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND THE BLOCKCHAIN
To really understand what is special about Bitcoin, we need to understand
how it works at a technical level.
—Narayanan et al.
69
While this thesis focuses on the actions a state may take to manipulate and regulate
cryptocurrencies, this chapter covers the relevant terminology, technology, concepts, and
mechanics of cryptocurrencies. Additionally, this chapter provides the reader with the
foundation of cryptocurrency knowledge that this thesis draws upon later and references
when discussing the possibility of prohibition, regulation, or adoption of cryptocurrencies
by state governments. However, it is important to note the limitations and constraints of
this chapter.
There are many design elements of Bitcoin not covered in this thesis due to
constraints of the length and detail. Many of the concepts and technologies utilized by
Bitcoin are extremely complex—and far outside the scope of this thesis—therefore this
chapter provides the requisite amount of information to explain the Bitcoin ecosystem
without extending past the question asked in this thesis. This chapter examines Bitcoin
exclusively due to Bitcoin’s popularity, market value, and abundance of published
material; however, the technical discussion in this chapter applies to other cryptocurrencies
as well.
70
Another distinction is the difference between the phrases of “digital currencies,”
“virtual currencies,” “decentralized virtual currencies,” and “cryptocurrencies.” To
simplify the dissimilarity between them, this chapter offers the following assumptions
exclusive to this thesis but may have exceptions in outside literature. As indicated in the
literature reviewed in this thesis, there is no established preference of terms in use. The
most common terms observed in regulatory literature are the phrases of “digital currency”
69
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, preface.
70
CoinMarketCap, “Cryptocurrency Market Capitalizations.” At the time of writing this thesis,
Bitcoin has the greatest market value of any cryptocurrency in USD per-coin, as well as being the first
cryptocurrency ever adopted as a form of payment.
20
and “virtual currencies (VCs),” which can be used interchangeably as a blanket phrase
under which to group all electronic currencies. Similarly, Eswar Prasad defines digital
currency in his report as a “broad term that encompasses any form of currency that is not
tangible.”
71
On the other hand, cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies that specifically rely on
cryptographic proof, and can be centralized, or decentralized.
72
Decentralized virtual
currencies (DVC) are specifically decentralized digital currencies and may or may not be
cryptocurrencies. For example, Bitcoin is considered both a cryptocurrency and a DVC.
Because delineating between the terms can become confusing, this thesis adheres to the
syllogism all cryptocurrencies are digital currencies; however, not all digital currencies are
cryptocurrencies.
To explain the key parts of Bitcoin and to avoid confusion, this chapter builds upon
the distinction Vigna and Casey use in their 2015 book, The Age of Cryptocurrency, to
differentiate the Bitcoin technology from the currency.
73
They write that the word Bitcoin
written with a capital “B” refers to the Bitcoin technology, system, or network; meanwhile,
stating bitcoin with a lowercase “b” will reference the currency.
This chapter is organized into four sections; the first section discusses the
relationship between trust and Bitcoin and why users can trust it without needing a
governing body. The second section details the security and capabilities provided to Bitcoin
by cryptographic functions and the blockchain. The third section outlines the Bitcoin
network, the responsibilities of miners and nodes, and how transactions are stored on the
blockchain. The fourth and final section discusses the security within a virtual wallet,
storing and transacting with bitcoins, cryptocurrency exchanges, the bitcoin ecosystem,
and a brief discussion of cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin.
71
Eswar Prasad, Central Banking in a Digital Age: Stock-Taking and Preliminary Thoughts
(Washington, DC: Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings, 2018),
https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-will-fintech-and-digital-currencies-transform-central-banking, 5.
72
The concepts of “cryptographic proof,” “centralized,” and “decentralized” currencies is discussed
later in the chapter.
73
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 9.
21
A. BITCOIN AND “TRUST”
The concept of trust is an essential to any currency’s adoption as a form of money.
Under the classical model of fiat currency, the state builds and sustains public trust in the
currency through the use of anticounterfeiting technology, central banks, third-party
verification, and enforcement agencies to prevent cheating or tampering with the system.
However, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin promote a system of currency radically differing
from traditional government backed fiat. As Vigna and Casey argue, “[f]or any currency
to be viable, be it a decentralized cryptocurrency issued by computer program or a
traditional “fiat” currency issued by a government, it must win the trust of the people.”
74
On the other hand, Bitcoin is not controlled by any government, organization, or person
and must approach the dilemma of trust without the aforementioned tools available to state
backed currency.
The design of Bitcoin is a departure from prior models of currency because Bitcoin
purposely replaced the requirement for trusted third parties, instead instilling confidence
in the currency through the reliance on virtually impervious mathematical functions. The
pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, acknowledges the challenges of the
Bitcoin. He recognizes that prior to Bitcoin, “no mechanism [has existed] to make payment
over a communication channel without a trusted third party.”
75
To conquer the problem of
removing the middleman from transactions, Nakamoto proposed the Bitcoin whitepaper, a
“peer-to-peer electronic cash system that uses ... cryptographic proof instead of trust” in
financial institutions.
76
Vigna and Casey contend, “cryptocurrency systems imbue trust in
an inviolable, decentralized computer program that is, in theory, incapable of defrauding
people.”
77
Some writers define cryptocurrencies as trustless; however, this is not the case. As
Narayanan et al. note that the Bitcoin protocol is not trustless, but strives for a system of
74
Vigna and Casey, 15.
75
Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” 1.
76
Nakamoto, 1.
77
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 15.
22
“trust minimalization” to reduce the maximum amount of trust required of a currency to
function.
78
Similarly, Vigna and Casey state
The simple genius of this technology is that it cuts away the middleman yet
maintains an infrastructure that allows strangers to deal with each other. It
does this by taking the all-important role of ledger-keeping away from
centralized financial institutions and handing it to a network of autonomous
computers, creating a decentralized system of trust that operates outside the
control of any one institution.
79
Bitcoin has removed many of the third party and regulatory bodies from its framework
without removing trust. The replacement of trust is a key to why Bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies offer a viable and attractive alternative to the conventional model of
government backed fiat.
B. SECURITY IN BITCOIN: HASH FUNCTIONS, MERKLE TREES, AND
THE BLOCKCHAIN
What is a cryptocurrency? Narayanan et al. identify the word “cryptocurrency” as
a combination “cryptographic” and “currency,” wherein the “use of cryptography provides
a mechanism for securely encoding the rules of a cryptocurrency system within the system
itself.”
80
Bitcoin’s choice of cryptographic functions is the hash function, a cryptologic
function that is used in Bitcoin to build many of the more complex data structures
guaranteeing the security of the protocol.
Hash functions are important to discuss for two reasons. First, Bitcoin relies on the
functionality and the output generated by the cryptographic hash to create many of the
Bitcoin data structures, such as the Merkle tree, blockchain, mining, and the virtual wallet,
each described in turn in the following text.
81
The second reason this chapter discusses the
hash function is because cryptographic hashes are inherently robust in securing
information, so that an adversary who wants to disrupt or manipulate the data contained in
78
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 280.
79
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 5. The terms “decentralization” and “ledger” are
explained later in this chapter.
80
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 1.
81
Narayanan et al., 1.
23
a hash output could neither view the contents, nor the alter data inside without showing
that someone tampered with the hash.
82
Narayanan et al. define the purpose of hash
functions “to prevent tampering and equivocation, as well as to encode, in a mathematical
protocol, the rules for creation of new units of currency.”
83
More importantly,
cryptographically secure hash functions operate in one direction from input to output and
cannot be unhashed by knowing the output.
All hashes are not the same, and to consider a hash function cryptographically
secure, the hash must exhibit the three properties of collision resistance, hiding, and puzzle
friendliness.
84
A collision occurs in a cryptographic function when two different imputs
result in the same output. There are collisions for every hash function, regardless of its
strength; therefore, a hash is considered collision resistant when it is virtually impossible
to find a collision.
85
One reason why collision resistant hash functions are useful,
particularly in the blockchain, is because they act as a summary of the input data, called a
digest.
86
Best stated by Narayanan et al., a cryptographic hash is “a very efficient way to
remember things [a user has] seen before and to recognize them again.”
87
The second
property of cryptograhically secure hash functions is hiding. Simiplified for this thesis,
hiding is achieved when the hash function secures the input data in such a way that an
adversary can not guess the input data, even with knowledge of the output.
88
Puzzle
friendliness—again, shortened for the purpose of this chapter—occurs when no known
systematic method exists that would discover the input of a hash function faster than
random guesswork.
89
82
Narayanan et al., 2–9.
83
Narayanan et al., 1.
84
Narayanan et al., 2.
85
Narayanan et al. use a 256-bit hash as an example of collision resistance, stating, “if every computer
made by humanity had been computing since the beginning of the universe, the odds that they would have
found a collision by now are still infinitesimally small,” Narayanan et al., 3–4.
86
Narayanan et al., 5.
87
Narayanan et al., 5.
88
Narayanan et al., 5.
89
Narayanan et al., 8.
24
The majority of the Bitcoin protocol utilizes the particularly strong hash function
of secure hash algorithm (SHA)-256,
90
which is described as virtually uncrackable unless
the source of the information is already known.
91
The SHA-256 output presents itself as a
fixed-length digest or an alphanumeric string that is 64 characters in length, regardless of
the size input into the hash function.
92
For example, Vigna and Casey demonstrate that
when one runs the entire contents of War and Peace and then a separate 13-word phrase
through a SHA-256 generator, both of the outputs result in a 64 character string unique to
their contents.
93
An example of a SHA-256 output is in Figure 1.
Figure 1. A SHA256 Hash Generated from the Phrase
“Naval Postgraduate School”
94
The two hash-based data structures this chapter discusses are the block chain and
the Merkle tree. As the word implies, the blockchain consists of multiple blocks of
information chained together via a hash function (see Figure 2). Narayanan et al. further
break down the components within each block, explaining, the “block chain [is] a clever
combination of two different hash-based data structures. The first is a hash chain of blocks,
90
As 3blue1brown estimates in his video, using the computing power as of the video’s production in
2017, to receive a 1-in-4 billion chance that SHA256 protection would be cracked over a period of 507
billion years, it would require four billion galaxies each filled with four billion planets, each planet
containing four billion people, and with each person armed with the entire estimated processing power of
all google servers combined with graphic processing units that are dedicated to cracking one specific
SHA256 digest string. “How Secure Is 256 Bit Security?” YouTube video, 5:05, posted by 3blue1brown,
July 8, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9JGmA5_unY&t=71s.
91
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 110.
92
Narayanan et al., 5.
93
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 129.
94
Source: “SHA256 Hash Generator,” Password Generator, accessed April 29, 2018,
https://passwordsgenerator.net/sha256-hash-generator/. To generate the same hash, type in “Naval
Postgraduate School” exactly as written.
25
[and] ... the second data structure is a per-block [Merkle] tree of all transactions included
in the block.”
95
Figure 2. The Hash Structure of the Block Chain and Merkle Tree
96
The purpose of the Merkle tree is to protect the data stored in each block of Bitcoin
from tampering. Narayanan et al. states that the Merkle tree in Bitcoin groups “data blocks
into pairs of two, and then for each pair ... [builds] a data structure that has two has pointers,
one to each of the blocks.”
97
The process then repeats with the newly created data structure
placed into another pair of two, repeating until the information reaches a single block,
called the Merkle root.
98
According to Narayanan et al., since the Merkle tree is connected
by hash pointers, “any attempt to tamper with any piece of data will be detected by just
remembering the hash pointer at the top.”
99
A visual depiction of the Merkle tree is found
in the bottom half of Figure 2.
95
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 64.
96
Source: Suraj Kumar, “Merkle Trees—Introduction to Blockchain,” December 10, 2017,
https://medium.com/@skj48817/merkle-trees-introduction-to-blockchain-c80c0247046.
97
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 13.
98
“SHA256 Hash Generator.”
99
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 13.
26
The second hash-based data structure this chapter discusses is the blockchain. Much
like the Merkle tree’s protection of data within each individual block, the blockchain
protects and links the most current block to each previous block, consequently protecting
all of the historical Bitcoin data. The official website of the Bitcoin Core developers,
Bitcoin.org, describes how the construction of the blockchain, stating
The merkle root is stored in the block header. Each block also stores the
hash of the previous block’s header, chaining the blocks together. This
ensures a transaction cannot be modified without modifying the block that
records it and all following blocks.
100
The data stored within a blockchain can be any piece of information that a
developer wishes to protect; however, in the case of Bitcoin, the data stored are the account
balances of every bitcoin user in a system called a public ledger. Vigna and Casey explain,
“The payee no longer has to trust ‘third-party’ institutions such as banks or governments
to assure that the payer can deliver the agreed-upon funds.”
101
A major benefit of storing
the public ledger in the blockchain is that Bitcoin secures the information in a way that
allows Bitcoin to self-police, thereby eliminating the problem of counterfeiting and
providing an answer to the problem of double spending.
102
C. DECENTRALIZED PUBLIC LEDGER AND THE BITCOIN NETWORK:
MINING AND NODES
The concept of decentralization is critical to the trust model of Bitcoin because
decentralization allows access to the public ledger without the need for third parties (see
Figure 3). Vigna and Casey write that traditionally, fiat “[m]onetary systems have been
built on centralized ledger keeping” or a system wherein third parties are trusted to
100
“How Does Bitcoin Work?,” Bitcoin, accessed March 1, 2018, https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-
guide#block-chain-overview.
101
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 11, 15.
102
Narayanan et al. explain ‘double spending’ as spending a coin twice digitally. Double spending
can occur, but only one coin will remain after multiple transactions. Any attempt to do so will result with
only one expenditure to be validated after multiple confirmations on the longest block chain. Narayanan et
al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 34–35.
27
maintain a record of monetary balances and are the solitary point of query for information
on a user’s account balance.
103
Figure 3. Visual Differences between Centralized, Decentralized,
and Distributed Networks.
104
However, Bitcoin achieves decentralization through the Bitcoin network consisting of
individual miners and nodes that maintain copies of the public ledger worldwide.
105
This
reflects a concept known as the decentralized public ledger. Any person who wants to join
the Bitcoin network can turn her or his computer into a node or mining machine by
downloading the Bitcoin protocol software onto a computer meeting the minimum
hardware requirements and connect the computer to the Internet.
106
In addition to
perpetuating the public ledger, the Bitcoin nodes and miners are responsible for a number
103
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 20.
104
Source: Paul Baran, On Distributed Communications: I. Introduction to Distributed
Communications Networks, RM-3420-PR (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1964),
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_memoranda/2006/RM3420.pdf, 2.
105
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 120–137.
106
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 66–67.
28
of other tasks, including the verification and distribution of new transactions and
prevention of hostile manipulation to the network.
Bitcoin nodes listen for new transactions on the network and propagate transactions
to other nodes. To this end, each Bitcoin node institutes an independent check of any new
transaction data to maintain the stability of the network. According to Narayanan et al.,
these checks, verify the transactions are valid in the blockchain, ensure the bitcoins in
transactions have not already been spent (through double spending), ignore transactions
that have already been seen by the node so that they are rebroadcasted, and ensure
transactions are accepted according to a whitelist of scripts.
107
Nodes complete these tasks
by sending and receiving network data to other nodes and miners around the world in a
process that grows the Bitcoin blockchain and propagates transactions.
Like the nodes, Bitcoin miners have an important role in the Bitcoin network and
are responsible for three functions pertinent to this thesis: continuing the blockchain by
finding valid blocks, validating transactions that have been sent through the network, and
providing consensus. Bitcoin miners find valid blocks by placing the pending transactions,
which have been propagated via the nodes, into a block that will become validated as a part
of the blockchain.
108
However, the process of finding a valid block is not solved but
guessed, and moreover, it is mathematically unlikely that two separate miners are working
on an identical approach to find blocks.
109
This process of finding valid blocks is described in Bitcoin’s terminology as
mining, a phrase that Narayanan et al. compares to the mining the mineral gold due to the
randomness and luck involved in the process.
110
As a result of the stochasticity of finding
new valid blocks, mining Bitcoins becomes a system of chance and luck.
111
Mining is
monitored autonomously by the Bitcoin protocol and altered accordingly so that blocks are
107
Narayanan et al., 67.
108
Narayanan et al., 64–68.
109
Narayanan et al., 107.
110
Narayanan et al., 104.
111
Narayanan et al., 107.
29
made at an approximately steady rate. Bitcoin incorporates an algorithm that alters the
difficulty of solving the next block based on the computing power of the entire Bitcoin
network to ensure that new blocks are not created any slower or faster than roughly every
10 minutes.
112
Mining Bitcoin is considered competitive because even though there may
be a huge number of computers worldwide dedicated to mining, there can only be one
validated block found and rewarded in each interval.
113
Miners are also responsible for finding a consensus in the blockchain through a
mechanism called proof-of-work. By searching for the next valid block, miners also verify
the last known distributed valid block in the network. Because the Bitcoin network is peer-
to-peer and distributed throughout the globe, and there can only be one valid Bitcoin
blockchain, Bitcoin miners seek to validate the longest chain available in a process called
distributed consensus.
114
As long as a simple majority of miners and nodes in the network
are honest in a distributed consensus, the blockchain is protected from malicious actors that
seek to disrupt the network.
115
Miners are incentivized to mine Bitcoin through two established system of rewards
provided through the Bitcoin protocol. The first incentive and largest payoff for miners is
the block reward. Since there are many miners competing to find the next valid block at an
interval of every 10 minutes, the block reward essentially becomes “a payment to the
[miner] in exchange for the service of creating a block on the consensus chain.”
116
In
addition to incentivizing miners to mine Bitcoin, block rewards also act as Bitcoin’s only
coin creation process by adding bitcoins at an established rate to add the total worldwide
supply of the currency.
117
112
Narayanan et al., 107–8.
113
There can be multiple blocks validated or relayed in Bitcoin in a phenomenon known as a “fork;”
however, the Bitcoin protocol is designed to prevent a small number of forks from affecting its service.
Note this thesis does not discuss blockchain forks in detail. Narayanan et al., 69, 73–74.
114
Narayanan et al., 28–34.
115
Narayanan et al., 34–38.
116
Narayanan et al., 39.
117
Narayanan et al., 39.
30
The second incentive for mining Bitcoin are transaction fees. When a transaction is
made with bitcoin, a small transaction fee is also included. The miner who first places that
transaction into a block that is included on the blockchain receives that transaction fee as
payment for his or her service.
118
Mining Bitcoin can be rather profitable. For example, in early March 2018, miners
who found new blocks were given a block reward of 12.5 bitcoins, a total reward worth
approximately 137,500 USD.
119
However, the supply of remaining bitcoins rewards is
decreasing. Of the 21 million bitcoins that will ever be mined, only 20 percent remain.
120
As a result, mining has become a competitive business, and professional mining centers
filled with computers dedicated to the Bitcoin mining process have been popping up around
the globe.
121
These sophisticated mining centers are hundreds of thousands of times more
efficient than the average household computers and have a much higher probability of
finding the blocks; however, these centers have come at a cost to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
As discussed before, the Bitcoin protocol consistently increases the difficulty of
finding new blocks so even with advances in computer efficiency and capabilities,
computers still need to work harder to mine Bitcoins. As a consequence, large mining
facilities require a significant amount of energy to operate, generate a large amount of heat,
and have corresponding ecological impacts in the form of damage to the environment.
122
118
Narayanan et al., 39–40.
119
On 1 March 2018, the approximate value for a single bitcoin was 11,000 USD. “Cryptocurrency
Market Capitalizations;” “Bitcoin Block Reward Halving Countdown,” accessed March 5, 2018,
http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/.
120
Molly Jane Zuckerman, “80% of All Bitcoins Already Mined, Only 4.2 Million Coins Left until
Supply Cap,” Cointelegraph, January 15, 2017, https://cointelegraph.com/news/80-of-all-bitcoins-already-
mined-only-42-million-coins-left-until-supply-cap.
121
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 117–19.
122
Narayanan et al., 119–124.
31
D. TRANSACTING WITH BITCOIN: VIRTUAL WALLETS,
CRYPTOCURRENCY EXCHANGES, THE BITCOIN ECOSYSTEM, AND
OTHER CRYPTOCURRENCIES
This section of the chapter builds upon the previously discussed information in this
chapter to outline the digital aspects of cryptocurrency that provide anonymity to the user,
access to value stored in the blockchain, and the cryptocurrency ecosystem which has
developed since Bitcoin’s release.
1. Virtual Wallets and Transactions
To transact with bitcoin, a user must first create a virtual wallet. A virtual wallet is
software with a digital address that allows access to the Bitcoin blockchain for purchases,
transfers, and store of bitcoins.
123
It would be a misnomer if a person was to say that he or
she “sent” or “receive bitcoins” to a virtual wallet. During transactions, bitcoins are not
sent to individual wallets—in actuality, bitcoins are not sent anywhere—but instead they
are permanently listed on the blockchain’s public ledger, noting that a bitcoins balance
transfer has occurred.
124
Virtual wallets are comprised of two hash outputs of 64-digit strings (see Figure 1.)
which make up the public key and secret key. The virtual wallet allows Bitcoin users’
identities to considered pseudonymous, because buyers and sellers are only identified by
their public wallet address; moreover, a user is not restrained to a single wallet may choose
to create an unlimited amount of wallets.
125
Narayanan et al. note that the public key acts
as the “identity of a person or an actor in a system . . . [and] the consequence of treating
public keys as identities is that you can make a new identity whenever you want.”
126
The secret key acts like a secret signature, which Narayanan et al. describe as
“existentially unforgeable.”
127
The private key’s role is to verify the public key and to
123
Narayanan et al., 77.
124
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 124–125.
125
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 139.
126
Narayanan et al., 19.
127
Narayanan et al., 15–16.
32
validate the transaction by the sender; therefore, for a transaction to occur, a sender of
bitcoin must know the public and private key of the wallet she or he wishes to send from
and the public identity of the recipient.
128
A visual of a transaction chain is depicted in
Figure 4 from the original Bitcoin whitepaper.
129
The drawback of this system is that if
malicious actors gain access to a linked public and private key, they can steal the identity
of their victim as well as the entire balance of bitcoins out of the compromised wallet.
130
Figure 4. A Chain of Transactions Depicting the Ownership of
Bitcoins with Public Keys and Private Keys
131
Since virtual wallets are simply the combination of a private and public key
providing access to the Bitcoin public ledger, the wallet can be stored either online,
digitally on a computer, or completely separate from a computer on a piece of paper or
physical device.
132
According to Narayanan et al., each of these methods offers its own
advantages and disadvantages regarding availability, security, and convenience; however,
the downside to all methods of storing bitcoin is that if a user loses or forgets his private
128
Narayanan et al., 16.
129
Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.”
130
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 76.
131
Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” 2.
132
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 76–83.
33
key, the user will lose access to his bitcoins.
133
When a user loses or forgets his or her
private key, the bitcoins stored in that wallet become lost, unrecoverable or unspent and
still apart of the total bitcoin supply. Lost bitcoins are somewhat common, and Roberts and
Rapp, estimate there are nearly 4 million bitcoins or 23 percent of the total mined bitcoins
that are lost forever.
134
However, Bitcoin transactions are not completely anonymous and can still be
tracked. Narayanan et al. explain
Linking a bitcoin address to real-world identities is often easy. If you
interact with Bitcoin business—be it an online wallet service, exchange or
other types of merchant—they usually want your real-world identity for
transactions with them. For example, an exchange might require your credit
card details, or a merchant will need your shipping address.
135
Since the blockchain maintains a public historical record of every bitcoin transaction that
has ever occurred, an entity like law enforcement could easily track the flow of bitcoins
between known public addresses.
136
The true challenge of tracking the flow of bitcoins
lies with linking addresses to real-world identities.
2. Bitcoin Exchanges and the Cryptocurrency Ecosystem
According to Bitcoin.org, an individual may acquire bitcoins through purchase at a
Bitcoin exchange, as a transaction for goods or services, through mining Bitcoins, and by
exchanging fiat to bitcoins with another individual.
137
This chapter has already discussed
mining, virtual wallets, and how to transact with bitcoins; this section focuses on the
cryptocurrency exchanges.
133
“Bitcoin Block Reward Halving Countdown,” 76.
134
Jeff Roberts and Nicolas Rapp, “Exclusive: Nearly 4 Million Bitcoins Lost Forever, New Study
Says,” Fortune, November 25, 2017, http://fortune.com/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/.
135
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 139.
136
Narayanan et al., 139.
137
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 171; “FAQ—Bitcoin,” accessed April
3, 2018, https://bitcoin.org/en/faq.
34
Bitcoin exchanges, if legal in the individual’s country, are arguably the easiest way
to obtain bitcoins for fiat currency. Narayanan et al. describe
Bitcoin exchanges are businesses that—at least from the user interface
standpoint—function in a similar way to banks. They accept deposits of
bitcoins and will, just like a bank, promise to give them back on demand
later. . . . You can also exchange bitcoins for fiat currency or vice versa. ...
the big [advantage] is that exchanges help connect the Bitcoin economy and
the flows of bitcoins with the fiat currency economy, so that it’s easy to
transfer value back and forth.
138
Because cryptocurrency exchanges operate as private businesses, they are subject to the
laws and regulations of the exchanges host nation. For example, a popular U.S.
cryptocurrency exchange is Coinbase, which is based in San Francisco and available to 32
countries worldwide but subject to U.S. regulation.
139
If an individual would like to obtain
bitcoin through Coinbase, she or he would first need to register with the company and then
use a wire transfer, credit card, or bank account to exchange U.S. dollars for bitcoins.
Contrary to some opinions, Bitcoin is not a Ponzi or pyramid scheme. The currency
obtains its value through the economic principles of supply and demand. As Bitcoin
Magazine states, “Bitcoin derives its unique value from the fact that despite its lack of
official backing or wide acceptance, it has generated an ecosystem in which many people
are willing to trade and accept it.”
140
As a consequence of this system, the price of a single
bitcoin often fluctuates and is considered volatile since the value of the cryptocurrency is
not fixed to any physical commodity like gold is or guaranteed by any country.
Since the inception of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency has had varying levels of
acceptance worldwide as a currency. Vigna and Casey point out that major merchants have
accepted Bitcoin as a form of payment, including “Overstock.com, the Sacramento Kings
basketball team, Dell computers, and the travel site Expedia” for example and “sixty-seven
138
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 89.
139
“About Coinbase,” Coinbase, accessed April 3, 2018, https://www.coinbase.com/about?locale=en-
US.
140
“What Makes Bitcoin Valuable?,” Bitcoin Magazine, accessed April 4, 2018,
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/guides/what-makes-bitcoin-valuable/.
35
thousand [other] merchants by the end of June 2014.”
141
In addition to major retailers
accepting bitcoin, every day users can interact, exchange, and store wealth in bitcoin via
Bitcoin ATMs.
142
Bitcoin ATMs operate much in the same manner as bank ATMs, only
that instead of transacting solely with a bank, a customer can also exchange wealth in the
form of credit or debit cards from or into the Bitcoin blockchain. As of March 2018, there
are 2648 Bitcoin ATMs worldwide in dozens of countries.
143
3. Other Cryptocurrencies
Since the conception of Bitcoin, numerous other cryptocurrencies have emerged,
each with their own unique approach as a type of currency. These alternative
cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, can transact and trade on exchanges much of the same ways
that Bitcoin can and have their own values separate from Bitcoin based on supply and
demand.
144
Examples of other popular altcoins at the time of writing based on the total
market capitalization of each coin include Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash
(Bcash).
145
Altcoins may have different properties from those listed in this chapter. For
example, largely on the design of Bitcoin with a few exceptions, Litecoin mines new blocks
at a rate of 2.5 minutes rather than Bitcoin’s 10 minute interval between mining blocks.
146
Another example is Ripple, a cryptocurrency that is open source, yet proposes a centralized
governance through a parent company and corporate investors.
147
Despite different
variations in how each altcoin functions, most coins enjoy many of same benefits of
141
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 103.
142
Vigna and Casey, 103–105.
143
“Bitcoin ATM Industry Statistics Charts,” accessed April 5, 2018, https://coinatmradar.com/
charts/.
144
Narayanan et al., Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 250–252.
145
“Cryptocurrency Market Capitalizations.”
146
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 248.
147
David Evans, “Economic Aspects of Bitcoin and Other Decentralized Public-Ledger Currency
Platforms” (working paper, Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics at Chicago Unbound, 2014),
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2349&context=law_and_econo
mics, 16.
36
Bitcoin. Consequently, according to Narayanan et al., the cryptocurrencies compete on the
free marketplace of cryptocurrency exchanges for dominance as the most valuable
currency, and users choose the coin that they deem having the most valuable features.
148
E. CONCLUSION
This chapter’s intent has been to provide a brief synopsis of how cryptocurrencies
like Bitcoin operate and to link cryptocurrency functionality to the potential for
governmental regulation. The different dimensions of the processes this thesis discusses
build upon in later chapters to offer talking points for future regulations and restrictions to
limit or adopt cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has proven itself as an innovative and resilient form
of currency promoting new challenges to the state’s sovereign ability to regulate currency
within its boundaries. The following chapters reference concepts of the blockchain,
pseudonymous digital identities and wallets, cryptocurrency exchanges, the cryptocurrency
ecosystem, and the altcoin.
The author chose this chapter’s information under the pretense of linking
cryptocurrency functionality to the potential for government enforcement of regulations or
restrictions; therefore, the thesis references these concepts later. This chapter—by no
means—completely covers the mathematics, technology, history, functionality, and
applications of cryptocurrencies.
149
148
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 251.
149
For further reading on the Bitcoin ecosystem or the technology in cryptocurrencies, refer
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies.
37
III. BANNING CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Chapter II explained the relevant basics of cryptocurrency and the aspects of the
cryptocurrency ecosystem, which apply to this thesis. This chapter builds upon the
information in the previous chapters, focusing on the interaction between cryptocurrency
and the sovereign state to expound upon historical examples of states prohibiting virtual
currencies and the reasons why and the methods how they have.
As stated in the introduction of this thesis, cryptocurrencies challenge the
sovereignty of states due to the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies as an alternative—
and unregulated—form of currency with which to transact. Consequently, this thesis
assumes that states will attempt to gain control on cryptocurrency by passing legislation
targeting cryptocurrency users, designers, or the cryptocurrencies themselves. However,
this chapter specifically focuses on reasoning and methods of states that have partially or
completely prohibited cryptocurrencies.
This chapter on banning cryptocurrency is divided into five sections, starting with
the first section detailing the reasons why a country might opt for a partial or total ban of
cryptocurrencies. The second section lists the different aspects of cryptocurrency a state
could choose to regulate to limit domestic cryptocurrency use. The third section provides
a limited list and background of the sovereign states with an official stance either partially
or completely against cryptocurrency. The fourth section discusses the effectiveness state-
backed regulation has had on prohibiting cryptocurrency transactions. The final section
consists of the conclusion and key findings.
A. WHY STATES CHOOSE TO BAN VIRTUAL CURRENCIES
After surveying the literature available, this chapter identifies five common reasons
why states might choose to ban cryptocurrencies. Although there are certainly other reasons
that would drive a state toward the prohibition of virtual currencies, this chapter narrows
its discussion to the five factors most frequently mentioned in this thesis’s research. The
five provocations that might lead a state to ban cryptocurrency are
38
bitcoin’s continued use as a method of payment within criminal networks
the weakening of the state’s ability to control the capital flow wealth,
domestically and internationally, in decentralized cryptocurrency
transactions
to restrict citizens ability to rally against the state and reduce the civil
rights of the people
to eliminate competing virtual currencies in preparation for the release of a
state-backed cryptocurrency
to eliminate the major fiscal and infrastructure drains cause by miners on
the state controlled energy grid
1. Bitcoin and Crime
One potential reason why a state might suppress cryptocurrencies is to reduce
domestic crime, or at least make the payment for crimes less rewarding. One of the major
reasons why Bitcoin gained popularity—and the eye of the U.S. government—has been
the cryptocurrency’s preference as a preferred currency in the Darknet.
150
For example,
the Silk Road, which is considered by many scholars to have been the most infamous
Darknet marketplace, exclusively accepted bitcoins for illicit drugs and services. In fact,
the Silk Road operated unopposed for over two years—despite governmental knowledge
of the website—until the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) finally pinpointed and
arrested the dark website’s founder in October of 2013.
151
Moreover, by Lawrence
Trautman’s account, Bitcoin transactions have been tied to a number of illicit cases of the
Darknet, including paid assassinations, attacks on businesses, child exploitation and
pornography, corporate espionage, drugs, fake IDs and passports, investment schemes,
sexual exploitations, and stolen credit cards.
152
There are a number of reasons why illicit actors would choose cryptocurrencies to
transact with over traditional fiat. In Trautman’s research, he reveals the five reasons why
the U.S. Secret Service views virtual currencies as a threat, stating they offer criminals:
150
Christin, “Traveling the Silk Road.”
151
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 86.
152
Lawrence Trautman, “Virtual Currencies Bitcoin and What Nowafter Liberty Reserve, Silk Road,
and Mt. Gox?,” Richmond Journal of Law & Technology 20, no. 4 (2014): 2–5.
39
1. The greatest degree of anonymity for both users and transactions.
2. The ability to quickly and confidently move illicit proceeds from one
country to another.
3. Low volatility, which results in lower exchange risk, increasing the digital
currency’s ability to be an efficient means to transmit and store wealth.
4. Widespread adoption in the criminal underground.
5. Trustworthiness.
153
The correlation between Bitcoin and illicit activity has not gone unnoticed by the
international community, and, as discussed later in the chapter, several governments blame
the connection between Bitcoin and criminal enterprises as a motive for prohibiting virtual
currencies.
2. Increase the State’s Capital Controls
One of the most attractive features that cryptocurrencies possess is the ability to
transact seamlessly across sovereign state borders, intrinsically bypassing the regulations,
taxes, tariffs, or sanctions to which traditional fiat currency is subject. By circumventing
the fees associated with fiat, international cryptocurrency transactions are cheaper for both
payees and recipients. Even though cryptocurrencies may provide substantial economic
incentives for both merchants and customers, cryptocurrencies also possess significant
negative drawbacks for the state. As Narayanan et al. point out, cryptocurrencies can defeat
capital controls, which are defined as the “rules or laws that a country has in place that are
designed to limit the flow of capital (money and other sets) into or out of the country.”
154
Capital controls are important and effective tools states, especially states in economic
crisis, can use to stabilize the economy.
153
Trautman, 3.
154
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 178.
40
Thus, a potential solution of a state fearing capital flight
155
—due to political or
economic instabilities—could be to ban cryptocurrencies or cryptocurrency exchanges.
Narayanan et al. surmise, “a government that wants to enforce capital controls in a world
with Bitcoin has to try and disconnect the Bitcoin world from the local fiat currency
banking system.”
156
Similarly, the IMF writes that “instead of purchasing foreign currency
subject to government-imposed limitations, market participants can purchase VCs on the
Internet and use them to conduct Internet-based foreign exchange transactions or make
capital transfers that would otherwise be prohibited.”
157
By banning cryptocurrencies or
enacting legislation that would increase the difficultly of exchanging of fiat to
cryptocurrency, sovereign states complicate the process by which wealth is exported
outside of a nation. For example, China and Iceland both cite concerns about their right to
control capital as a reason for their crackdown on cryptocurrencies, and this chapter
discusses both countries in more detail later.
158
3. To Limit Civil Rights
Another potential motive for the state to impede the use of cryptocurrencies—
exclusive to the more authoritarian systems of state control—would be to constrain or limit
social movements or the peoples’ civil rights. The same benefits of anonymity,
trustworthiness, and expediency that cryptocurrencies offer criminal networks could also
benefit the civil rights movements within restrictive states. The unique features of
cryptocurrencies could facilitate transactions for social movement leaders hiding from the
heavy hand of the state. For example, Matthew Ponsford writes that the Chinese restriction
155
According to Investopedia, “Capital flight is a large-scale exodus of financial assets and capital
from a nation due to events such as political or economic instability, currency devaluation or the imposition
of capital controls.” Elvis Picardo, “Capital Flight,” Investopedia, January 5, 2004,
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalflight.asp. To read more, also see “Capital Flight,”
Investopedia, accessed October 15, 2017, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/
c/capitalflight.asp#ixzz5Czwv8Th0.
156
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 178.
157
Dong He et al., Virtual Currencies and beyond: Initial Considerations, IMF Discussion Note
SDN/16/03 (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 2016), https://www.imf.org/
external/pubs/ft/sdn/2016/sdn1603.pdf.
158
Primavera De Filippi, “Bitcoin: A Regulatory Nightmare to a Libertarian Dream,” Internet Policy
Review 3, no. 2 (May 2014): 5, https://doi.org/10.14763/2014.2.286.
41
on Bitcoin is a byproduct of the restriction on the freedom of speech in China, remarking
“bloggers, outspoken activists, or ‘revolutionaries’” could use technology like Bitcoin as
methods of payment to skirt around the restrictive state controls on free speech.
159
4. To Introduce a State-backed Cryptocurrency
One of the more interesting phenomenon research for this thesis discovered is the
correlation between states choosing to prohibit aspects of decentralized virtual currencies
that also plan to release their own respective state-controlled virtual currency. For example,
in 2014, Ecuador enacted legislation that outlawed all cryptocurrencies, and then
introduced its own electronic virtual currency.
160
Lawrence White of the Cato Institute
points out that the legislation “gave the state a monopoly in electronic money ... [and]
barred the private mobile phone companies and private financial institutions from
providing competing systems.”
161
Nonetheless, Ecuador’s experiment with electronic currency was short lived,
lasting only four years and costing billions of dollars to upkeep.
162
White’s analysis of the
Ecuadorian project points to a combination of factors that led to a lack of popularity and
ultimately the electronic currency’s downfall and he cites a lack of trust in the central bank,
a less than convenient exchange system, and a reluctance from the citizens to disregard the
heavily used and trusted U.S. dollar.
163
159
Matthew P. Ponsford, “A Comparative Analysis of Bitcoin and Other Decentralized Virtual
Currencies: Legal Regulation in the People’s Republic of China, Canada, and the United States,” Jolt
Digest (blog), November 2015, http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/a-comparative-analysis-of-bitcoin-and-
other-decentralized-virtual-currencies-legal-regulation-in-the-peoples-republic-of-china-canada-and-the-
united-states.
160
“Ecuador Bans Bitcoin, Initiates Government-Run Digital Currency,” PanAm Post (blog), last
updated July 25, 2014, https://panampost.com/panam-staff/2014/07/25/ecuador-bans-bitcoin-initiates-
government-run-digital-currency/.
161
Lawrence H. White, “The World’s First Central Bank Electronic Money Has Come—and Gone:
Ecuador, 2014–2018,” Cato at Liberty (blog), April 2, 2018, https://www.cato.org/blog/worlds-first-
central-bank-electronic-money-has-come-gone-ecuador-2014-2018.
162
White.
163
White.
42
Nevertheless, a sovereign state could attempt to introduce its own respective
cryptocurrency and revise its approach to banning and adopting cryptocurrency from the
lessons learned in Ecuador. For example, government officials in China announced in late
March 2018 that the central bank intends to “launch a crackdown” on all virtual currencies,
while simultaneously pushing “forward the research and development of its own digital
currency.”
164
5. To Eliminate the Excessive Energy Consumption in Mining
As emphasized in Chapter II, mining Bitcoins can be extremely profitable but, as a
requirement, the process requires a tremendous amount of energy. Depending on the price
of electricity, the cost of power is often the largest expense in mining; therefore, miners
will seek the greatest return on investment in countries where electricity is cheap, or the
state subsidizes electricity to the people.
165
In such circumstances, mining becomes a
physical and economic strain on the electrical grid, and a government could potentially
outlaw or limit the mining of cryptocurrencies.
A recent example of this occurred in early 2018 when China began to reduce the
available power output to miners as a part of a greater long-term cryptocurrency
crackdown.
166
Similarly, Venezuela has taken actions against Bitcoin miners, despite an
official government stance permitting cryptocurrency trading and ownership within the
state. In 2017, Venezuela arrested Bitcoin miners, alleging they used 300 mining units to
commit cyber fraud and power theft.
167
164
“China Central Bank Will Launch Crackdown on Virtual Currencies,” Reuters, March 29, 2018,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-finance-digital-currency/china-central-bank-will-launch-
crackdown-on-virtual-currencies-idUSKBN1H515L.
165
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 121–123.
166
Sara Hsu, “China’s Shutdown of Bitcoin Miners Isn’t Just about Electricity,” Forbes, January 15,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsu/2018/01/15/chinas-shutdown-of-bitcoin-miners-isnt-just-about-
electricity/.
167
Tim Worstall, “Congratulations to Venezuela—Bitcoin Miners Arrested for Stealing Free
Electricity,” Forbes, January 27, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/01/27/
congratulations-to-venezuela-bitcoin-miners-arrested-for-stealing-free-electricity/.
43
B. MECHANISMS TO BAN VIRTUAL CURRENCIES
Regardless of the reason for banning cryptocurrencies, the end goal of a partial or
complete ban on cryptocurrencies is to discourage the use of cryptocurrency as a medium
of transactions within a sovereign state. From the literature this thesis research, there are
two separate avenues a government must approach to achieve the intended results of
prohibiting virtual currencies. The state’s regulatory body must choose which aspects, if
not all of them, to restrict, and then the state must determine how much punishment is
required to enforce the policies.
According to a November 2015 digital currency report for the Bank for
International Settlements (BIS), there are five restrictive areas a state could target to
prohibit or discourage cryptocurrency: retail transactions, acceptance by retailers, use as
financial instruments, currency exchanges, or transactions between banks.
168
The report
also comments, “Authorities could seek to ban the use of digital currencies in their
respective jurisdictions. Practically, this could imply a ban on any digital currency-based
financial activities, as well as digital currency exchanges or digital currency acceptance by
retailers.”
169
Even if a sovereign state chooses to restrict a specific area of cryptocurrency, the
state must also demonstrate the means to enforce the policies if it is to be successful in
disrupting domestic cryptocurrency use. Joshua Hendrickson and William Luther released
a study titled “Banning Bitcoin,” in which they analyze the size of the state needed and the
punishments require, to stop alternative currencies from functioning within a state.
170
Hendrickson and Luther find that
A government can prevent an alternative [currency] from circulating if it is
willing and able to mete out sufficiently sever punishments. ...
168
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Digital Currencies, 12–13.
169
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, 12.
170
Joshua Hendrickson and William Luther, “Banning Bitcoin,” Journal of Economic Behavior &
Organization 141 (September 2017): 194.
44
Sovereignty—that is, the ability of some agents to govern the behaviors of
others—is a function of both size and power.
171
Furthermore, Hendrickson and Luther conclude from their research that a
government of a sufficient size can prevent cryptocurrencies from circulating as a form of
money without the need for punishments and completely ban a virtual currency if it can
effectively punish individuals challenging the ban.
172
Both the BIS report and “Banning
Bitcoin” provide the hypothetical necessities required to prohibit cryptocurrencies. The
next section of this chapter examines the countries that have implemented restrictions on
cryptocurrencies.
C. COUNTRIES THAT HAVE BANNED CRYPTOCURRENCIES.
Decentralized cryptocurrencies pose a new and dynamic challenge to sovereign
states; thus, by nature of the cryptocurrencies novelty, the international community remains
divided on what action should be taken to confront cryptocurrencies. To cover the various
methods states can respond to lawlessness of decentralized cryptocurrencies, this chapter
provides short case studies on sovereign states that have enacted laws partially or
completely prohibiting the domestic use of virtual currencies.
The case studies in this section are divided into three groups: the sovereign states
that have blanket legislation to prohibit cryptocurrencies, the systematic prohibition of
cryptocurrencies in China, and the case of Iceland wherein separate aspects of
cryptocurrencies are both banned and encouraged. Of the three case studies in this section,
the discussion on China’s regulations provides the most detail and sections later in this
chapter draw on it when discussing the effectiveness of banning cryptocurrencies.
This chapter focuses on China as the prime case study example for three reasons.
First, China has approached the prohibition of cryptocurrency methodically, gradually
instituting new laws since 2013. Second, China appears to have had success in disrupting
171
Hendrickson and Luther, 194.
172
Hendrickson and Luther, 194.
45
its domestic cryptocurrency networks. Finally, China’s actions have had a notable
corresponding effect on the international cryptocurrency marketplace.
1. Countries That Have Banned Bitcoin: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ecuador,
Kyrgyzstan, and Nigeria
As of March of 2018, five countries have adopted legislation that makes owning or
transacting with cryptocurrencies illegal. For example, in 2017, the country of Bangladesh
has outlawed Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. According to Bangladeshi law,
transactions using Bitcoin or other virtual currencies are illegal, and violators are subject
to a sentence of up to 12 years in prison.
173
Kyrgyzstan also released similar guidance in
2014, when the Kyrgyz government barred its citizens from using virtual currencies.
174
As discussed in the previous section, in Ecuador the “issuance, promotion or
circulation of virtual currencies” is illegal.
175
Likewise, as per the Central Bank of
Bolivia’s directory resolution n044/2014, all “currency or coins not issued or regulated by
the government, including a list of virtual currencies” are prohibited.
176
The Bolivian
government has also proven itself keen to enforce the policy, arresting 60 of its citizens in
May for using bitcoins and altcoins as investments.
177
Nigeria offers a more recent
example of a state initiating an official stance on cryptocurrencies. As of early 2017, the
Central Bank of Nigeria banned virtual currencies, stating “transactions in VCs are largely
173
Abdur Rahim Harmachi, “Bangladesh Bank Warns against Transaction in ‘Illegal’ Bitcoin, Other
Cryptocurrencies,” Bbnews24, December 28, 2017, https://bdnews24.com/economy/2017/12/27/
bangladesh-bank-warns-against-transaction-in-illegal-bitcoin-other-cryptocurrencies, sec. Economy.
174
“Warning of the National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic: On the Spread and Use of the ‘virtual
Currency,’ in Particular, Bitcoins (Bitcoin),” Kyrgyz Bank, July 18, 2014, http://www.nbkr.kg/
searchout.jsp?item=31&material=50718&lang=ENG.
175
“Digital Currencies: International Actions and Regulations,” Perkins Coie, last updated April 26,
2018, https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/news-insights/digital-currencies-international-actions-and-
regulations.html.
176
“Digital Currencies.”
177
Aaron van Wirdum, “Bolivian Authorities Arrest 60 ‘Cryptocurrency Promoters,’” Bitcoin
Magazine, May 29, 2017, https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bolivian-authorities-arrest-60-
cryptocurrency-promoters/.
46
untraceable and anonymous making them susceptible to abuse by criminals, especially in
money laundering and financing of terrorism.”
178
2. China
Of all of the nations that have attempted to ban cryptocurrency, the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) has taken the most substantial actions to limit domestic
cryptocurrency use in what could be described as the systematic installment of laws to
discourage cryptocurrency use inside of Chinese borders. Starting in 2013, the People’s
Bank of China (PBOC)—the state controlled central bank of China—enacted the country’s
first step toward prohibiting cryptocurrency use when the state barred Chinese based
financial institutions from using bitcoin as a method of transaction.
179
By December 4,
2013, the PBOC had advised commercial banks to prohibit “settlement or payments related
to bitcoin. It also barred trust companies and fund-management firms from making bitcoin-
related investments and advised insurers not to insure bitcoins.”
180
Matthew Ponsford points out that in addition to the new Chinese restrictions on
Bitcoin in 2013, China also instituted new requirements to the financial sector, requiring
all Chinese-based cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms to “register with the
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ... [and] Telecommunication Bureau.”
181
Shortly after the 2013 restrictions, China further clamped down on domestic
cryptocurrencies use when it ordered that all bitcoin trading accounts to shut down by April
15, 2014.
182
178
Kevin Amugo, Circular to Banks and Other Financial Institutions on Virtua Currency Operations
in Nigeria (Abuja, Nigeria: Central Bank of Nigeria, 2017), https://www.cbn.gov.ng/out/2017/
fprd/aml%20january%202017%20circular%20to%20fis%20on%20virtual%20currency.pdf.
179
“China Bans Financial Companies from Bitcoin Transactions,” Bloomberg News, December 5,
2013, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-05/china-s-pboc-bans-financial-companies-from-
bitcoin-transactions.
180
Grace Zhu, “China Central Bank Warns Banks on Bitcoin,” Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2014,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-central-bank-warns-banks-on-bitcoin-1399454876, sec. Markets.
181
Ponsford, “A Comparative Analysis.”
182
Chao Deng and Lingling Wei, “China Cracks Down on Bitcoin,” Wall Street Journal, April 1,
2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-cracks-down-on-bitcoin-1396361492, sec. Markets.
47
More recently, China has directed its laws toward the restriction of mechanisms in
cryptocurrency allowing individuals to create or mine new currencies. In late 2017, Chinese
regulators moved to ban Chinese public and corporate fundraising through initial coin
offerings (ICO), a method commonly used to raise capital for new cryptocurrencies prior to
release.
183
China has since doubled-down on its anti-ICO policy. Starting in February of
2018, the state officially discouraged Chinese companies abroad from issuing ICOs and
started to block domestic Chinese Internet access to cryptocurrency development or trading
websites.
184
These actions build upon a January 2018 act that limited electricity to
cryptocurrency miners and ordered “local governments to make an ‘orderly exit’ from the
[cryptocurrency] industry.”
185
Grant Clark and Lulu Chen list several reasons why China has started to preclude
cryptocurrencies, including “cleansing risk from financial markets,” which they describe as
“a [Chinese] government mantra for more than two years.”
186
Also, they cite other possible
reasons that China has taken such actions against cryptocurrencies, such as targeting the
shadow banking sector, eliminating the source of unregulated domestic loans, and limiting
methods of moving money internationally.
187
A more transparent reason why the Chinese government assesses cryptocurrency as
a threat is because of its ability to export capital overseas. Chinese regulation on capital
controls limit the maximum outflow of yuan at 50,000 USD per person, per year.
188
Instead
of storing wealth in Chinese banks where the currency inflation is greater than the interest
183
Saheli Roy Choudhury and Barry Huang, “Chinese ICOs: China Bans Fundraising through Initial
Coin Offerings, Report Says,” CNBC, September 4, 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/04/chinese-icos-
china-bans-fundraising-through-initial-coin-offerings-report-says.html.
184
Sara Hsu, “China Serious about Ending ICOs, Cryptocurrency Exchanges,” Forbes, February 7,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsu/2018/02/07/china-serious-about-ending-icos-cryptocurrency-
exchanges/.
185
Hsu, “China’s Shutdown of Bitcoin Miners.”
186
Grant Clark and Lulu Yilun Chen, “How China’s Stifling Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies:
QuickTake,” Bloomberg News, last updated February 27 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
articles/2018-01-09/how-china-s-stifling-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrencies-quicktake-q-a, sec. Technology.
187
Clark and Chen.
188
Emily Parker, “Even China Can’t Destroy Bitcoin,” MIT Technology Review, December 11, 2017,
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609320/can-china-contain-bitcoin/.
48
gained, Chinese investors and businessmen can use cryptocurrencies as a means to deport
wealth to other nations where their investments will be worth more. Ever vigilant to prevent
capital flight, China views Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a threat to the Chinese
economy because it offers a new unregulated capital export option for wealthy Chinese
citizens looking to invest abroad.
To date, even though it is illegal to transact with cryptocurrencies, the PRC still
allows its citizens to own them; however, this may change in the future. In an effort to
discourage the domestic attraction of cryptocurrencies, the Chinese government and central
bank have attacked the aspects allowing cryptocurrencies to operate as money, including the
cryptocurrency exchanges that offer Chinese citizens access to the monetary world outside
of the communist state. In any event, the effect that China has had on the domestic and
international cryptocurrency market, irrespective of the cause for the systematic prohibition
of digital currency is significant (as this chapter discusses later in detail).
3. A Partial Ban in Iceland
In contrast to the other countries discussed in this chapter, Iceland has taken a
different administrative approach to Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Jack Tatar explains
that the Icelandic government—fearful of capital flight following the 2008 economic crisis—
passed the 2013 Icelandic Foreign Exchange Act, which permits its citizens to legally own
and mine cryptocurrencies yet prohibits “foreign exchange trading” with virtual
currencies.
189
Despite the harsh international cryptocurrency trading platform maintained by
the government, Iceland remains one of the top locations for mining Bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies.
As companies confront new regulations in their native countries, Iceland offers an
attractive combination of cheap power generated by hydroelectric plants, a cold climate to
deal with the heat generated during the mining process, and a friendly business environment
189
Jack Tatar, “Iceland—Time to Free Bitcoin!,” The Balance, last updated March 17, 2017,
https://www.thebalance.com/iceland-time-to-free-bitcoin-4030896.
49
that promotes the offshoring of international business to the Icelandic mainland.
190
Tatar
asserts that although Iceland appears to remain firm in its cryptocurrency capital controls,
Bitcoin may prove to be a valuable asset that could pay dividends if the government
unshackled its policy on foreign cryptocurrency exchanges.
191
D. THE EFFECTS OF BANNING CRYPTOCURRENCY
Gauging the effectiveness of individual state regulations on cryptocurrency is
challenging because cryptocurrency ecosystems transcend state borders and provide a
significant amount of anonymity to their users. Moreover, cryptocurrencies and
cryptocurrency exchanges are commonly referred to as the “wild west,” an analogy
comparing the figurative parallels of lawlessness and anarchy prevalent in the cryptocurrency
ecosystem to that of the North American frontier.
192
Comparatively, it is these same factors
of lawlessness and anarchy confounding how states approach the cryptocurrency dilemma,
which also complicates the measurement of state regulation’s effects in the cryptocurrency
ecosystem, or the corresponding compliance of citizens with sovereign state’s virtual
currency laws.
From the research this thesis effort examines, there appears to be no definitive
analysis on the effectiveness of governmental laws and regulations on Bitcoin’s users. The
reactivity of markets, the value of bitcoin, fluctuations in user population, the number of daily
transactions, and the locations of miners are all suggested methods to measure the pulse of
cryptocurrency; however, the application of tools hiding users’ identities, like virtual private
networks and the Darknet, can skew data. There are simply too many variables that go into
the value of cryptocurrency to provide an in depth analysis in this thesis. Therefore, to steer
the discussion toward the questions posed in this thesis, this section focuses on the authors
who have made connections between the correlation on the price of bitcoin, response of
190
Rick Noack, “Cryptocurrency Mining in Iceland Is Using So Much Energy, the Electricity May
Run Out,” Washington Post, February 13, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/
2018/02/13/cryptocurrency-mining-in-iceland-is-using-so-much-energy-the-electricity-may-run-out/, sec.
WorldViews.
191
Tatar, “Iceland—Time to Free Bitcoin!”
192
Steve Stecklow et al., “Chaos and Hackers Stalk Investors on Cryptocurrency Exchanges,”
Reuters, September 29, 2017, http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/bitcoin-exchanges-risks/.
50
domestic cryptocurrency miners, and exchanges in countries that choose to ban
cryptocurrency.
1. China’s Impact on Cryptocurrencies
Of all the countries that have enacted laws to restrict virtual currencies, none have
had a greater effect on the cryptocurrency ecosystem than China. According to many
cryptocurrency enthusiasts and bloggers closely following cryptocurrencies, there is a
seemingly apparent connection between the legislation that China passes (or announces), and
the price of cryptocurrencies worldwide; however, this thesis could find no scholarly source
that verifies, proves, or discredits the claim that China holds significant power over
cryptocurrencies. Therefore, this section focuses on the impact Chinese legislation has had
on Bitcoin miners and exchanges and the correlation between bitcoin price and news of new
Chinese regulations.
China’s laws on mining appear to have had an impact on Chinese miners and mining
companies within the PRC borders. Grant Clark and Lulu Chen point out that China has
changed the entire mining industry after its January legislation limiting electricity to Chinese
miners. They explicate, “miners initially flocked to China because of its inexpensive power,
local chipmaking factories and cheap labor—now they may have to look elsewhere.”
193
Clark and Chen state
the moves [new legislation] are reshaping the Bitcoin mining industry and
driving up costs. Bitmain, which runs China’s two largest Bitcoin-mining
collectives, is setting up regional headquarters in Singapore and now has
mining operations in the U.S. and Canada. BTC.Top, the No. 3 mining pool,
is also opening a facility in Canada. Bitcoin exchanges and wallet services in
the country are also leaving, setting up over-the-counter shops in Hong Kong
or looking at operating out of Singapore or South Korea.
194
In addition, China also appears to have influenced the value of bitcoin worldwide.
Andrew Marshall writes that China has had an invariably important relationship with Bitcoin,
and he argues that “no other country’s government has had such a consistent and powerful
193
Clark and Chen, “How China’s Stifling Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies.”
194
Clark and Chen.
51
effect on Bitcoin price.”
195
He observes that China’s first impact on the cryptocurrency
market occurred after the PBoC forbid Chinese financial institutions from using Bitcoin in
late 2013, an occurrence that directly impacted the largest bitcoin exchange in the world,
BTC China, and caused the price of Bitcoin to plummet to less than 50 percent over a period
of two weeks.
196
Marshal reports that a similar occurrence in January 2017 when the PBoC
bank executed on-site inspections on Chinese exchanges “to look into capital flight, money
laundering and market manipulation” that resulted in a 10 percent decline in value.
197
A similar occurrence appeared after China banned ICOs and shut down exchanges in
September of 2017, appearing to cause a reactionary market decline of bitcoin’s value from
5000 USD to 3000.
198
The speculative market that drives the price of cryptocurrencies is
volatile and is susceptible to rumors and regulations worldwide. Although the cryptocurrency
market initially declined in the wake of the new Chinese regulation, the market quickly
rebounded, skyrocketing back to 7000 USD in a few weeks’ time.
199
There may be correlation between Chinese regulations and the price of bitcoin;
however, gauging the Chinese impact on the international cryptocurrency ecosystem is not a
simple matter; an entire thesis could be dedicated to quantitatively analyzing the cause and
effect relationship. The research presented by this this, however, did not encounter any
scholarly sources analyzing the effect that China’s prohibitive laws have had on its people,
or how successful the enforcement of those policies have been. What is certain is that
decentralized virtual currencies will continue to function despite the Chinese governmental
animosity toward cryptocurrencies. As Vigna and Casey assert,
The Chinese government might bar its banks from handling bitcoin-related
transaction services or declare that only the yuan be used within the nation’s
195
Andrew Marshall, “How China Influences Bitcoin Price, Explained,” Cointelegraph, February 15,
2017, https://cointelegraph.com/explained/how-china-influences-bitcoin-price-explained.
196
Marshall.
197
Marshall.
198
Panos Mourdoukoutas, “Bitcoin Prices Still Firmly above $7,000, without China,” Forbes,
November 4, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2017/11/04/bitcoin-prices-still-
firmly-above-7000-without-china/.
199
Mourdoukoutas.
52
borders, but it can’t shut down bitcoin, which resides nowhere and
everywhere. The same challenge faces any government.
200
In the future, China may choose to prohibit individual ownership of cryptocurrencies, but as
of now, it seems intent on denying its citizens access to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
2. Other States’ Effect in Banning Cryptocurrencies
Outside of China, sovereign states that have banned cryptocurrencies appear to have
had mixed domestic result in their efforts to prevent their citizens from obtaining Bitcoin and
other cryptocurrencies. Again, one such case is in Nigeria where cryptocurrencies like
Bitcoin have been deemed illegal. Even so, the Nigerian government and central bank both
acknowledge that they are nearly powerless to enforce cryptocurrency laws, admitting in a
governmental conference in 2018 that the “Central bank cannot control or regulate bitcoin.
Central bank cannot control or regulate blockchain. Just the same way no one is going to
control or regulate the Internet. We don’t own it.”
201
In the case of Nigeria, the state can tell
its citizens that cryptocurrencies are illegal, but given the combination of an economic
opportunity investing in bitcoin and the lack of sufficient state power to find and punish
violators, it is unlikely that the country will be able to eliminate cryptocurrency users under
its sovereignty.
A similar case to Nigeria can be found in Ecuador, where Bitcoin has been illegal for
four years to date. Alexandra Veloz writes in mid-2017 “even if the law only allows the flow
of electronic backed money backed by the Central Bank, people are using and buying bitcoin
increasingly often.”
202
Likewise in Venezuela, where the country has arrested Bitcoin
miners in the past, the citizens continue to risk prosecution by mining and transacting bitcoins
to survive in the hyperinflated economy.
203
200
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 66.
201
Kevin Helms, “Central Bank of Nigeria Says ‘We Can’t Stop Bitcoin,’” Bitcoin News (blog),
March 5, 2017, https://news.bitcoin.com/central-bank-of-nigeria-says-we-cant-stop-bitcoin/.
202
Alexandra Veloz, “Ban Fails to Halt Bitcoin in Ecuador,” Antigua Report (blog), May 24, 2017,
http://antiguareport.com/2017/05/ban-fails-to-halt-bitcoin-in-ecuador/.
203
Rene Chun, “Big in Venezuela: Bitcoin Mining,” The Atlantic, September 2017,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/big-in-venezuela/534177/.
53
A more striking development is a surge in demand for bitcoin in countries that have
clamped down on the legality of cryptocurrencies. For example, one local Nigerian exchange
in late December 2017 valued of bitcoin 15 percent higher than exchanges outside of the
country, in the face of then-new governmental warnings on cryptocurrency.
204
3. Banning Cryptocurrency Internationally
A sovereign state that chooses to ban cryptocurrency may find the enforcement of
anti-cryptocurrency policies difficult, especially when cryptocurrency is accepted
internationally. There is not internationally recognized regulatory standard for the regulation
and prosecution of cryptocurrencies. While countries like Bangladesh, China, Ecuador, and
Nigeria may choose to outlaw cryptocurrencies, the vast majority of other nations have yet
to adopt such a critical stance on cryptocurrencies, thereby fueling the cryptocurrency
ecosystem to thrive internationally in the face of nations seeking prohibit its use. Matthew
Ponsford, comments, “inconsistencies in regulation have posed many challenges for
jurisdictions currently attempting to mitigate regulatory deficiencies,” highlighting the
difficulties of international cooperation to obtain records and prosecute violators
internationally.
205
A sovereign state prohibiting cryptocurrencies may be surrounded
geographically by countries accepting of them or be interdependent economically with
sovereign entities embracing virtual currencies. As a consequence, individual admission to
the cryptocurrency ecosystem only requires Internet access and a willingness to participate,
regardless of the state laws to which citizens are subordinate.
E. CONCLUSION
Banning cryptocurrencies may be a tool for sovereign states that want to contain or
restrict its citizens from using cryptocurrency, but there is still no clear defined verdict on
how effective the measures are internal to the state. Of the countries identified in this chapter,
the gradual implementation of anti-cryptocurrency laws in China appears to have the greatest
204
Aline Oyamada and Camila Russo, “Bitcoin Trading Thrives Wherever Regulators Crack Down
Most,” Bloomberg News, December 14, 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-14/
bitcoin-trading-thrives-wherever-regulators-crack-down-most.
205
Ponsford, “A Comparative Analysis of Bitcoin.”
54
affect international market for cryptocurrencies, but only because the Chinese labor and
power costs have been conducive to a growing cryptocurrency ecosystem.
A sovereign state may attempt to ban aspects of cryptocurrencies to regain its controls
on the monetary supply, but there will always be individuals and organizations that will find
illegal methods to move money away from the prying eye of the state. If anything, the
research has shown that a sovereign state wherein cryptocurrencies are considered illegal
may not have the capacity to prevent or prosecute individuals within its jurisdiction. This
conclusion is justified by the thriving cryptocurrency ecosystem in sovereign states where
cryptocurrencies are considered illegal and highlights to the inability of the state to enforce
laws against domestic cryptocurrency users.
206
If a sovereign state was to become truly
successful at regulating or prohibiting cryptocurrency, the state would need to completely
control or deny its citizens access to the Internet.
Another conclusion is that it may not feasible for solitary, less developed nation to
ban cryptocurrencies while other nations regulate or adopt them. Weaker, less developed
states may find themselves unable to enforce their anti-cryptocurrency policies and lacking
the technology or capability to find and prosecute individuals or organizations violating their
anti-virtual currency laws. Likewise, BIS offers the suggestion that any unitary attempt by
individual states to ban cryptocurrencies may be less than effective, observing that “given
the nature of digital currencies, which are typically online and therefore not limited to
national jurisdictions, a coordinated approach at a global level may be important for
regulation to be fully effective.”
207
However, banning cryptocurrency is just one answer to
how sovereign states can deal with the challenges posed by decentralized virtual currencies.
In the next chapter, this thesis illuminates how states can regulate the cryptocurrency
ecosystem to minimize its impact to the sovereign functions of the state.
206
Oyamada and Russo, “Bitcoin Trading Thrives.”
207
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Digital Currencies, 12.
55
IV. THE REGULATION OF CRYPTOCURRENCY
Chapter III explored the methods of sovereign states in banning cryptocurrencies.
This chapter approaches the regulation of cryptocurrency in a similar approach to Chapter
III; however, state-backed regulation of cryptocurrency differs in rationale and
implementation from the states that choose to ban virtual currencies. For purposes of this
chapter, cryptocurrency regulations are the potential methods by which a state allows its
citizens to legally obtain, transact, and develop cryptocurrencies without the state actually
recognizing, adopting, or banning aspects of virtual currencies. At the time of writing, no
clear virtual currency regulation exists on a supranational level. Even states with strong
economic and political ties have shown little similarity in the methods by which they
choose to target the emerging cryptocurrency ecosystem.
As discussed in Chapter II, cryptocurrency’s peer-to-peer nature transcends
physical state borders, transacting across a range of sovereign entities, each with its own
take on the how to regulate cryptocurrencies. Because the question of cryptocurrency and
state sovereignty surpasses individual states, there are a number of regulatory responses
drawn on an international, multistate level. To explore state-backed regulation in
cryptocurrency, this chapter is divided into five sections. First, this chapter presents the
rationale as to why a state would choose to regulate cryptocurrencies over banning or over
adopting its own state-backed cryptocurrency. The second section explains the difficulties
of regulating cryptocurrency within a sovereign state. The third section outlines a range of
broad methods that sovereign states could use to approach the question of regulation and
cryptocurrency. The fourth section presents the regulatory action taken by the United States
as a case study because of the sophisticated and intricate regulatory response taken. The
fourth section also discusses the regulatory action taken on a supranational level by the
European Union (EU), and the guidance provided from the international institutions of the
IMF and BIS. The fifth and final section of this chapter offers concluding thoughts on
sovereign states’ regulation of cryptocurrency.
56
A. THE RATIONAL TO REGULATE VIRTUAL CURRENCIES
The rationale to regulate cryptocurrencies is not unlike the reasons listed for
banning cryptocurrency presented in Chapter III. However, by allowing cryptocurrencies
to function legally within the sovereignty of the state, the governing body also assumes the
risks associate with cryptocurrency, which may challenge the state’s economic, political,
and law enforcement capabilities.
208
This section discusses the three reasons why a state
would choose to regulate cryptocurrencies: consumer protection, the prevention of money
laundering, and fiscal policy protection.
1. Consumer Protection
Sovereign states often quote consumer protection as a fundamental reason to
regulate cryptocurrencies due to the risks inherent in the unregulated cryptocurrency
market. As the BIS states, “central banks typically have a responsibility to promote safe
and efficient payment systems.”
209
For instance, investors could face the potential for loss
due to the volatility of value in cryptocurrency markets. The BIS also points out that due
to the relative anonymity in cryptocurrency transactions, there is a large risk of fraud in
digital currency markets.
2. Money Laundering
The pseudoanonymity inherent in cryptocurrency has generated a number of
difficulties for law enforcement agencies. As stated by the 2015 BIS report, the “relative
anonymity of digital currencies may make them especially susceptible to money laundering
and other criminal activities.”
210
Cryptocurrencies can easily be transferred from fiat to
cryptocurrency, transferred through a number of virtual wallets, and then exchanged back
into fiat currency via an exchange or via a transfer of cryptocurrency to another user’s
208
The reasons why sovereign states may choose to ban cryptocurrency presented in Chapter III are:
to reduce crime, to regain the capital controls of the state, to limit or restrict the citizens civil rights, to
develop and introduce a state-sanctioned cryptocurrency, and to eliminate cryptocurrency mining as a
major drain on the energy grid.
209
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Digital Currencies, 14.
210
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, 15.
57
virtual wallet in exchange for cash. While trackable through the blockchain, this process
complicates the legal requirements that permit law enforcement to track and prosecute
money launderers. A sovereign state could attempt to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges
or require its citizens to register cryptocurrency accounts to increase the visibility of
transactions.
3. To Protect Monetary Policy
In the theoretical event that that a non-sovereign cryptocurrency becomes widely
accepted and used without adequate state-controlled regulations in place, the citizens could
bypass the sovereign state and central bank completely. If such an event was to occur, the
result could be a weakening of the sovereign government and central bank to issue and
control interest rates and the weakening of monetary policy. The CPMI report explains, “a
widespread substitution of banknotes with digital currencies could lead to a decline in
central bank non-interest paying liabilities. . . . The result could be a reduction in central
bank earnings that constitute central bank seigniorage revenue.”
211
Likewise, if
cryptocurrency becomes widespread, citizens would no longer require the use of banks in
favor of the peer-to-peer nature of the blockchain. The result would be a change in the
central bank’s monetary policy.
B. DIFFICULTIES OF REGULATING CRYPTOCURRENCIES
States face an inherent challenge in regulating cryptocurrencies—finding an
appropriate level of regulation that minimally infringes on the citizens’ rights to own or
use cryptocurrency but also retaining a level of control over cryptocurrencies meeting
sovereign state needs. The needs of individual states vary and are dependent upon the
political, economic, and law enforcement requirements. Because cryptocurrencies
themselves do not pose an inherent threat to the state or its citizens, some law scholars
argue that it is beyond the control of the state to prohibit ownership or transactions with
virtual currencies. For example, Bryans writes:
211
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures.
58
In an increasingly digital world, it makes perfect economic and societal
sense to allow digital currencies, government-backed or otherwise. . . .
Regulation of such currencies should occur at the point where law
enforcement can most effectively punish civil and criminal violations with
the least overhead.
212
More importantly, cryptocurrencies are difficult to define, and therefore, they are
difficult to regulate. The IMF asserts that cryptocurrencies “combine properties of
currencies, commodities, and payment systems, and their classification as one or the other
will often have implications for their legal and regulatory treatment.”
213
Additionally,
Bohme et al. affirm, “it is infeasible to regulate all peers in the Bitcoin network due to their
quantity, their geographic distribution, and the privacy protections in the network. Instead,
regulators are naturally drawn to key intermediaries.”
214
The lack of an established
definition or regulation to group cryptocurrencies under, coupled with the transnational
reach of virtual currencies and the difficulty of monitoring transactions, has shaped a
multitude of sovereign responses internationally, diverse in methods that are used to
restrain cryptocurrencies. As a consequence, the regulatory approaches level of
intrusiveness vary by regulation on cryptocurrencies on a case-by-case basis and are
explored later in the chapter.
C. METHODS OF REGULATING CRYPTOCURRENCY
The 2015 CPMI report for the BIS also lists four broad classifications detailing how
a sovereign state can regulate—without banning—virtual currencies. This section is
divided upon the four broad classifications listed and complements the information
provided by the BIS with other scholarly sources to provide an analysis of the regulatory
actions available to sovereign states. The four broad categories of regulation are:
informational/moral suasion, the regulation of specific entities, interpretation of existing
regulations, and the creation broader regulations to target cryptocurrencies.
212
Bryans, “Bitcoin.”
213
He et al., Virtual Currencies and beyond, 24.
214
Bohme et al., “Bitcoin,” 231.
59
1. Informational and Moral Suasion
The moral suasion regulatory option presented by the BIS proposes highlighting
the risks and dangers of investing, transacting with, and mining cryptocurrency to the
general public, indirectly weakening the appeal of cryptocurrencies to the public.
215
Examples of the informational approach include public warnings, promoting general
information on investing and buying cryptocurrencies, and providing research papers to
the public.
216
As outlined in Chapter II, Bitcoin and other currencies obtain their value through a
system of supply and demand, and by many individuals and businesses view them as an
investment rather than a currency. As a result, the value of cryptocurrency is reactionary
to potential news that might affect its wealth. A sovereign state could use cryptocurrency’s
reactionary value to pass new cryptocurrency restrictions, or simply suggest implementing
new cryptocurrency regulations, to indirectly discourage citizens’ use of cryptocurrencies
by reducing its investment potential.
2. The Regulation of Specific Stakeholders
A governing body could also create regulations on specific stakeholders, such as
targeting the privately owned financial institutions functioning as key parts of a
cryptocurrency network.
217
For example, a cryptocurrency exchange is considered a
financial based institution, and an example of a regulation in this category would be the
creation of minimum consumer protection requirements to which the exchange or other
institution would be subject. Another example would be the requirement of locally owned
exchanges to keep and provide records to regulatory bodies when necessary.
3. Interpretation of Existing Regulations
Another method by which a government could regulate cryptocurrencies would be
to interpret the existing laws of the state so that cryptocurrencies would fall under the
215
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Digital Currencies, 12.
216
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, 13.
217
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, 12.
60
existing legislative framework.
218
For instance, in the United States, federal entities have
taken advantage of the lack of a clear definition of what a virtual currency is (e.g., security,
currency, property), allowing a range of cooperating government organizations to enforce
standards upon cryptocurrency users under the prior-existing laws.
4. The Creation of Broader Regulation
Sovereign governments may enact new, broader legislation that combines or covers
the larger aspects of cryptocurrency listed like consumer protection, organizational rules
for stakeholders, and specific operating rules.
219
For instance, the CPMI suggests that state
authorities could create broad AML and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) regulations that
would cover all cryptocurrency transactions, as well as payment methods, and
cryptocurrency exchanges under a single regulatory law.
220
D. SELECTIVE SUMMARY OF CURRENT CRYPTOCURRENCY
REGULATION
This section focuses almost exclusively on the regulation that the United States has
enacted on cryptocurrency to serve as an example of a state that has regulated
cryptocurrency. This thesis focuses on the United States because arguably the United States
has some of the most complex and complicated virtual currency regulation, with regulatory
bodies releasing new regulations and virtual currency guidance nearly every month. This
section also briefly discusses the regulatory actions and lack of action taken by the EU and
on an international level.
1. The United States
The United States arguably has one of the most complicated and robust standards
on virtual currencies. Because cryptocurrencies are neither easily defined, nor easily
categorized under existing laws, multiple regulatory bodies within the United States have
released their own guidance for the conduct of cryptocurrency transactions, investments,
218
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, 13.
219
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, 13.
220
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, 12.
61
and ownership for U.S. citizens. As stated by a 2018 Commodity Futures Trading
Commission (CFTC) report, “US law does not provide for direct, comprehensive federal
oversight of underlying Bitcoin or virtual currency spot markets. As a result, U.S.
regulation of virtual currencies has evolved into a multifaceted, multi-regulatory
approach.”
221
Under U.S. law, virtual currencies are considered to be as either property,
commodity, or security, dependent upon which U.S. regulatory body is charged with the
regulation.
a. Law Enforcement Agencies
The FBI is responsible for shutting down the Silk Road, an illicit Dark Web
marketplace that used bitcoin as the only accepted method of payment.
222
After two years
of searching, on October 1, 2013, the FBI was finally able to pinpoint and arrest the founder
and operator of the Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, on the charges of “narcotics trafficking and
money laundering conspiracies through creating and operating Silk Road. The FBI seized
all the bitcoins stored on the website,” allowing federal marshals to later sell 29,655
bitcoins at auction.
223
The arrest of Ulbricht and downfall of the Silk Road was the first
large-scale criminal investigation of criminal acts involving cryptocurrencies. As a result,
the 2013 case of the Silk Road has become widely associated with illicit cryptocurrency
use and has focused the attention of lawmakers and scholars towards studying the legality
of bitcoin.
b. Internal Revenue Service
In March 2014, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released tax guidance for virtual
currencies like Bitcoin and defined virtual currency as property under U.S. federal law.
224
221
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Backgrounder on Oversight of and
Approach to Virtual Currency Futures Markets (Washington DC: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission, 2018), https://www.cftc.gov/sites/default/files/idc/groups/public/%40customerprotection/
documents/file/backgrounder_virtualcurrency01.pdf, 1.
222
Huang, “Reaching within Silk Road,” 2105.
223
Huang, 2105.
224
Internal Revenue Service, IRS Virtual Currency Guidance: Virtual Currency Is Treated as
Property for U.S. Federal Tax Purposes; General Rules for Property Transactions Apply (Washington DC:
Internal Revenue Service, 2014), https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-virtual-currency-guidance.
62
Under the IRS guidance, individuals who transact, pay, or trade cryptocurrency are
responsible for reporting capital gains made during transactions or trades with
cryptocurrencies. Likewise, payments for services with virtual currencies are liable to the
same U.S. tax law as payments made with property.
c. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
The CFTC is an independent regulatory organization of the United States
responsible for monitoring and regulating the wide assortment commodity markets “to
foster open, transparent, competitive, and financially sound markets.”
225
The CFTC
“declared virtual currencies to be a ‘commodity’
226
subject to oversight under its authority
under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA)” in 2014.
227
Since then, the CFTC has held a
significant role in shaping public awareness and the current U.S. regulations in the
cryptocurrency ecosystem.
The CFTC divides its approach on the regulation of virtual currencies into five
categories: consumer education to provide greater public information on virtual currencies;
asserting legal authority to provide anti-fraud and manipulation regulations on virtual
currency derivatives; obtaining market intelligence to gather information and data on
virtual currency derivative; robust enforcement “to enforce the law and prosecute fraud,
abuse, manipulation or false solicitation in markets for virtual currency derivatives and
underlying spot trading;” and government-wide coordination of virtual currencies with
other federal regulators.
228
Under the authority bestowed by the CEA, the CFTC has taken a number of
enforcement actions on cryptocurrencies, including acting against unregulated exchanges
225
“Mission & Responsibilities,” U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, accessed April 22,
2018, https://www.cftc.gov/About/MissionResponsibilities/index.htm.
226
The “CFTC Glossary” defines commodity as “(2) A physical commodity such as an agricultural
product or a natural resource as opposed to a financial instrument such as a currency or interest rate.”
“CFTC Glossary,” U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, accessed April 22, 2018,
https://www.cftc.gov/ConsumerProtection/EducationCenter/CFTCGlossary/index.htm.
227
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Backgrounder, 1.
228
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 1–2.
63
domestically and abroad, enforcing laws prohibiting illegal trading on derivative platforms,
and issuing guidance on regulatory matters involving virtual currencies.
229
The CFTC has
also created a virtual currency self-certification process to enforce the regulations put forth
by the CFTC, while allowing U.S. exchanges access to Bitcoin future contracts.
230
The
self-certification process has since allowed two large market exchanges—the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange Inc. and the Chicago Board of Options Exchange—to offer bitcoin
future contracts as of December 1, 2017.
231
d. Security and Exchange Commission
One of the more recent U.S. agencies to offer guidance on cryptocurrency is the
Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), whose mission statement “is to protect
investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation” in
the buying and selling of stocks.
232
In a move to promote investor awareness and
protection in the cryptocurrency market, the SEC has recently released public guidance on
the conduct of cryptocurrency initial coin offerings (ICO). Similar to the concept of IPOs,
developers use ICOs to raise capital in the form of U.S. dollars or other cryptocurrency in
return for the pre-public release of the developer’s token or cryptocurrency at an
established price.
233
The company promoting the ICO benefits by raising capital prior to
the official release, and the customers can often buy the proposed cryptocurrency at a value
less than expected, offering the potential of a quick profit to investors.
229
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 1.
230
According to the “CFTC Glossary,” the definition of futures contract is “An agreement to
purchase or sell a commodity for delivery in the future: (1) at a price that is determined at initiation of the
contract; (2) that obligates each party to the contract to fulfill the contract at the specified price; (3) that is
used to assume or shift price risk; and (4) that may be satisfied by delivery or offset.” “CFTC Glossary,”
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
231
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Backgrounder, 2.
232
“SEC What We Do,” U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, June 10, 2013,
https://www.sec.gov/Article/whatwedo.html.
233
Jay Clayton, “Statement on Cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings,” U.S. Security and
Exchange Commission, December 11, 2017, https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/statement-
clayton-2017-12-11.
64
Although the SEC has released strenuous guidance for ICOs, the organization has
yet to clarify if cryptocurrencies are considered securities, which leaves ambiguity for
future possible SEC intervention into the cryptocurrency market.
234
For example, after
weighing the pros and cons of cryptocurrency use in the official 2017 public statement on
cryptocurrencies and ICOs, SEC Chair Jay Clayton writes:
It has been asserted that cryptocurrencies are not securities and that the offer
and sale of cryptocurrencies are beyond the SEC’s jurisdiction. Whether
that assertion proves correct with respect to any digital asset that is labeled
as a cryptocurrency will depend on the characteristics and use of that
particular asset.
235
Since the 2017 public release, the SEC has provided further guidance outlining
investor considerations for cryptocurrency trading. The most recent (March 7, 2018) public
release by the SEC, a report, has since turned to cryptocurrency exchanges, highlighting
that there are a number of cryptocurrency exchanges that do not adhere to the SEC
standards. Thus, the unregistered exchanges do not receive the SEC established investor
protections.
236
Moreover, the SEC declares, “a number of these platforms provide a
mechanism for trading assets that meet the definition of a ‘security’ under the federal
securities laws.”
237
Finally, this report announces that cryptocurrency exchanges may be
required—depending on the circumstances—to register with the SEC and adhere to
federally established minimums set by the SEC for securities and exchanges.
e. Office of Foreign Assets Control
The U.S. Treasury’s Office has also released new requirements through the Office
of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), mandating U.S. cryptocurrency exchanges and
234
According to Investopedia, security is defined as “A security is a fungible, negotiable financial
instrument that holds some type of monetary value. It represents an ownership position in a publicly-traded
corporation (via stock), a creditor relationship with a governmental body or a corporation (represented by
owning that entity's bond), or rights to ownership as represented by an option.” “Definition of a Security,”
Investopedia, November 26, 2003, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/security.asp.
235
Clayton, “Statement on Cryptocurrencies.”
236
“Statement on Potentially Unlawful Online Platforms for Trading Digital Assets,” U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission, March 7, 2018, https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/enforcement-tm-
statement-potentially-unlawful-online-platforms-trading.
237
“Statement on Potentially Unlawful Online Platforms for Trading Digital Assets.”
65
investors to blacklist specific cryptocurrency addresses that the OFAC deems as a threat to
the United States.
238
The list, referred to by OFAC as the specially designated nationals,
targets individuals, groups, and companies that do not necessarily need to be a part of a
sovereign state.
f. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) operates as the U.S.
Treasury’s law enforcement arm, and it is responsible for directing regulation and
enforcement of virtual currencies. According to the FinCEN official website, “FinCEN’s
mission is to safeguard the financial system from illicit use and combat money laundering
and promote national security through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of
financial intelligence and strategic use of financial authorities.”
239
FinCEN considers
virtual currency to be “a medium of exchange that operates like a currency in some
environments, but does not have all the attributes of a real currency. In particular, virtual
currency does not have legal tender status in any jurisdiction.”
240
However, FinCEN’s
interest in virtual currencies stems from users’ ability to exchange U.S. fiat dollars for
cryptocurrency and vice versa readily and quickly.
Virtual currencies are subject to the laws contained in the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA),
an act FinCEN explains as the “[United States] first and most comprehensive Federal anti-
money laundering and counter-terrorism financing statute.”
241
The 2013 guidance, which
officially applies the FinCEN regulations to virtual currencies, expands upon the laws
contained in the BSA to delineate the key participants subject to FinCEN regulations. As
such, the various participants of virtual currencies are arranged into three categories
238
Olly Jackson, “Ofac’s Crypto Blacklist Could Drive Investors to Riskier Exchanges,”
International Financial Law Review, April 6, 2018, http://www.iflr.com/Article/3799007/%5bOPEN-
ACCESS%5d-Ofacs-crypto-blacklist-could-drive-investors-to-riskier-exchanges.html.
239
“What We Do,” United States Department of the Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network, accessed April 22, 2018, https://www.fincen.gov/what-we-do.
240
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Application of FinCEN’s Regulations to Persons
Administering, Exchanging, or Using Virtual Currencies, FIN-2013-G001 (Washington, DC: Department
of the Treasury, 2013), https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FIN-2013-G001.pdf, 1.
241
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Application of FinCEN’s Regulations.
66
FinCEN defines as users, administrators, and exchangers of virtual currency (defined in
the footnotes).
242
Moreover, the enforcement of FinCEN regulations only apply to virtual
currency administrators and exchangers since they are considered money transmitters.
243
As of now, the FinCEN regulations are only applicable to the administrators and
exchangers of virtual currencies because they are classified as money service businesses,
and therefore, they are subject to the registration, reporting, and recordkeeping stipulated
under the BSA.
2. Regulation in the European Union
As of the time of writing, virtual currencies are completely legal under the
supranational guidance of the EU, allowing the EU member nations to regulate
cryptocurrency as they see fit. Compared to the United States, the EU’s Central Bank
(ECB) has taken a laissez-faire approach to virtual currencies, officially stating, “it is not
in the ECB’s responsibility to ban or regulate bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.”
244
The
ECB has instead elected to provide the public with an informational approach highlighting
the risks of investing and using cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, the ECB also argues Bitcoin
and other virtual currencies are not actually considered currency, citing the following four
reasons as justification: first, Bitcoin lacks a central authority. Second, Bitcoin has a limited
following of customers and merchants. Third, cryptocurrency transactions lack any legal
protection by the EU. Finally, the volatility of cryptocurrency is too unstable to be
predicted or used as a form of reliable payment.
242
FinCEN defines user as “a person that obtains virtual currency to purchase goods or services,” and
it further states, “obtaining” as an all-encompassing phrase that contains any or all of the following words
to describe virtual currency use: the “earning,” “harvesting,” “mining,” “creating,” “auto-generating,”
“manufacturing,” or “purchasing” of virtual currencies. Also according to FinCEN, an exchanger is “a
person engaged as a business in the exchange of virtual currency for real currency, funds, or other virtual
currency.” Finally, according to FinCEN, an administrator is associated with any persons “engaged as a
business in issuing (putting into circulation) virtual currency, and who has the authority to redeem (to
withdraw from circulation) such virtual currency.” Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Application of
FinCEN’s Regulations, 2–3.
243
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Application of FinCEN’s Regulations, 2.
244
“What Is Bitcoin?,” European Central Bank, February 13, 2018, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/
explainers/tell-me/html/what-is-bitcoin.en.html.
67
Likewise, in November 2017, the EU has also released public guidance from the
European Security and Markets Authority (ESMA) providing EU citizens with the risks
associated with ICOs.
245
The ESMA has since expanded the precautions to citizens of
virtual currencies, releasing another round of public awareness to pan-EU consumers on
the risks associated with buying and trading virtual currencies.
246
3. International Regulation
The current focus by many of the international standard setting institutions like the
IMF and the BIS appears to be a research and wait-and-see response. In this thesis, most
of the cited potential issues that cryptocurrency poses to the sovereign state are drawn from
the research reports released by the IMF and BIS. For example, writing for the IMF, Dong
He et al. note, “the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—the AML/CFT standard-setter—
and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have focused on the
prevention and law enforcement response to the money laundering risks posed by VCs” on
an international level.”
247
Even if new standards were created, the reach of international
regulators only extend as far as the countries that choose to adhere to the proposed
standards. Outside the creation of law enforcement standards for money laundering and
terror financing, there is little coordination against cryptocurrency on a multinational level.
E. CONCLUSION
Sovereign state regulatory agencies walk a tightrope between restricting and
adopting cryptocurrency. He et al. explain, “[t]he challenge for policymakers has often
turned on finding a balance between addressing the risks and vulnerabilities posed by VCs
while not stifling innovation.”
248
Moreover, one could make the case that restricting or
245
“ESMA Highlights ICO Risks for Investors and Firms,” European Securities and Markets
Authority, November 13, 2017, https://www.esma.europa.eu/press-news/esma-news/esma-highlights-ico-
risks-investors-and-firms.
246
“ESAs Warn Consumers of Risks in Buying Virtual Currencies,” European Securities and Markets
Authority, February 12, 2018, https://www.esma.europa.eu/press-news/esma-news/esas-warn-consumers-
risks-in-buying-virtual-currencies.
247
He et al., Virtual Currencies and Beyond, 26.
248
He et al.
68
prohibiting cryptocurrency in liberal democracies, which are founded on the ideals of
individual liberties, is an impracticality. Therefore, states will need to implement
restrictions on virtual currencies through the interpretation of existing laws, like in the
United States, or choose to create new, all-inclusive regulation mitigating the negative
attributes of cryptocurrency use.
Cryptocurrencies are an unprecedented step toward a new method of transaction
used both legally and illegally; therefore, sovereign governments will inevitably need to
pursue new regulations on virtual currencies to minimize illicit activities. Governing
bodies, regardless of their policy toward virtual currencies, need to address money
laundering, fiscal policy, and consumer protection. The route of regulation on
cryptocurrency will depend on a number of social, political, and economic factors. Whether
virtual currency regulations be a hands-on, multifaceted approach as seen in the United
States, less obtrusive moral suasion approach by the EU, or a new creation of broader
regulation, a state’s likely approach to cryptocurrency regulation is reflective of how much
the state views cryptocurrency as a threat. This chapter has focused on the reasons why a
sovereign state would seek to regulate cryptocurrency and outlined a number of possible
regulatory actions available to the state. The next chapter expands upon the adoption of
cryptocurrency by the sovereign state and explores how cryptocurrencies can officially
acclimate as a part of the state.
69
V. THE ADOPTION OF CRYPTOCURRENCIES BY
SOVEREIGN STATES
Chapter IV explored the rationale, methods, and real-world cases of regulating
cryptocurrency by sovereign states. This chapter directs its focus toward the adoption of
cryptocurrency within sovereign states. There are two distinct categories of state-sponsored
cryptocurrency. The first is the sovereign states that recognize prior-existing stateless
cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin) as a form of legal tender, and second is the cryptocurrencies
specifically developed by a sovereign state that supplants or supplements the existing
sovereign currency. This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the benefits a sovereign
cryptocurrency could provide to a state. The second section expands on the development
and implementation of state-sponsored cryptocurrency by analyzing the sovereign states
that plan to adopt or issue a state-backed cryptocurrency. The third section details a
selection of political and social obstacles of incorporating a sovereign-state
cryptocurrency.
A. REASONS FOR STATES TO USE CRYPTOCURRENCY
Whether a state adopts a preexisting stateless cryptocurrency or decides to create a
new state-backed virtual currency, there are a number of reasons why a sovereign state
might choose to incorporate a blockchain-based virtual currency into its financial system.
This section highlights the potential benefits for sovereign states should they choose to
adopt or create their own cryptocurrency with four examples: the inclusion of the unbanked
costs, cheaper transaction costs, cryptocurrency’s ability to bypass sanctions, and
cryptocurrency’s feature, which permits the state access to the full transaction history.
1. To Incorporate the Unbanked
A state cryptocurrency, adopted (Bitcoin) or created by a central bank, could be
used by less-developed countries to include the citizens who are not connected with
banking institutions, decreasing the poverty stricken individuals in a country while driving
economic growth. These people remain isolated from bank access due to a number of
reasons: lack of access to standing banking infrastructure, some countries have a weak
70
institutional identification process that creates risk for banks to invest in people, and then
there are the lack of profits when investing in the poor vice richer people elsewhere in the
world.
249
Vigna and Casey write that there are “roughly 2.5 billion adults in the world . . .
that are cut off from a financial system that the rest of us take for granted.”
250
They
describe the excluded people—those without access to banking services such as saving
accounts, checking accounts, and credit cards—as the unbanked. The unbanked are unable
to store and secure money in banks, make purchases on the Internet, or effectively transact
outside of their local area, and therefore, are a huge untapped market for services and
goods.
On the other hand, cryptocurrencies only require the Internet to move money, and
does not require identification for access. If a less-developed or developing state decided
to adopt and accept cryptocurrency as a form of money, theoretically, the unbanked citizens
would be granted access to every other cryptocurrency user. As Vigna and Casey highlight,
“financially integrating a third of humanity could create vast new opportunities for world
trade and for attacking poverty.”
251
By including the lower socioeconomic classes that
have been historically barred from participating in the global financial order, the state can
simultaneously uplift the poorest parts of its population, connect those individuals with the
state and global economy, and develop the resident human capital as greater economic
participants within the state. Ultimately, by implementing a state sanctioned
cryptocurrency system easily accessible to all individuals regardless of income, the people
can benefit from what this thesis discusses next, cheaper transaction costs.
2. Cheaper Transaction Costs
Additionally, a state-adopted or developed cryptocurrency could substantially
reduce the cost to move money transnationally over other money wire services Western
Union. According to Vigna and Casey, when using traditional fiat currencies there can be
up to seven paid intermediaries in a traditional credit card transaction between a customer
249
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 190.
250
Vigna and Casey, 186.
251
Vigna and Casey, 191.
71
and a merchant, agents who are responsible for either recording the identities of the users
or verifying that the appropriate funds are transferred from payee to merchant.
252
A bank
or credit card company charges merchants small fees for the intermediary service; however,
as Vigna and Casey illuminate, transactions across sovereign currencies (e.g., from U.S.
dollar to euros or pesos) incur additional exchange fees, adding up to roughly an eight
percent fee per transaction.
253
Moreover, if an individual chooses to send money directly
through a service like western union, the fee could be as high as 11 percent.
254
The end
result is a process that makes credit card transactions trustworthy but timely and costly
since the merchants often pass that third-party costs to the customer in a process that can
take days to complete.
In contrast, purchases with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin remove the third parties
from the transaction process. As discussed in Chapter II, cryptocurrencies replace
expensive intermediaries with the blockchain, permitting cryptocurrency users to transact
on a peer-to-peer basis with nearly no fees. Likewise, the transaction process with
cryptocurrencies is often significantly quicker and more secure since the transaction data
is permanently recorded within the blockchain and protected by cryptographic algorithms.
Therefore, coupled with the decreased cost of transacting, incorporating cryptocurrency
into the payment structure would decrease the costs of doing business, which could lead to
more purchasing power of the customers.
The merchants and customers are not the only beneficiaries from a cryptocurrency
adoption. Vigna and Casey point out that individuals reliant on global remittance—when
migrant workers are sent abroad for work to send money via international transfer services
to relatives in their home countries—would become a major benefactor from a state
accepted cryptocurrency. They write of traditional currency transactions, “fees for money
sent from the United States often hit 10 percent; from . . . other countries it can be double
that. With exchange-rate costs, the total friction in the transaction can run as high as 30
252
Vigna and Casey, 99.
253
Vigna and Casey, 100.
254
Vigna and Casey, 194
72
percent.”
255
For individuals who rely on out-of-country remittance(s), the money saved
through the use of cryptocurrency would be a substantial gain in purchasing power as the
recipients could in-turn use the increase available money within their local economy or as
savings.
Ultimately, sovereign states could use cryptocurrency to increase economic
opportunities and support their citizens. The adoption or creation of a sovereign
cryptocurrency would indirectly facilitate state interests by providing extra money to the
transactors, money that would normally lost to fiat transaction costs, but that citizens could
then return to the local or regional economy, eventually bolstering the economic capacity
of the state.
3. To Bypass Sanctions
Authors in this thesis’s literature review generally view the capability for
cryptocurrency to easily bypass sanctions negatively; nevertheless, for states on the
receiving end of economic sanctions, cryptocurrency offers a form of economic relief. For
one, cryptocurrency’s ability to transact and move wealth internationally without utilizing
third parties offers sovereign states—and ostensibly those countries currently under
international sanctions like Venezuela or Russia—the capability to ignore international
laws and policies. States can take advantage of the disruptive enterprise that cryptocurrency
promotes by creating a state-backed cryptocurrency controlled by the state, or likewise,
incorporate a stateless cryptocurrency as an additional form of money.
4. The Auditability of Cryptocurrency
Another use of cryptocurrency is that sovereign states could use cryptocurrency’s
ability to maintain a ledger of every transaction to its advantage by adopting a state-created
cryptocurrency to audit money flows and enhance AML/CTF laws. Sovereign states could
create a trackable cryptocurrency, similar to Bitcoin; however, the proposed state
cryptocurrency system would need to maximize the identification of users and require
cryptocurrency users to register with the government. The government cryptocurrency
255
Vigna and Casey, 189–190.
73
would incentivize users to register due to cryptocurrency’s capacity to transact more
cheaply on a peer-to-peer basis than other electronic methods of transaction (as mentioned
earlier). Additionally, a proposed state-sponsored cryptocurrency would encourage legal
employment of the cryptocurrency while discouraging the illegal use of other
cryptocurrencies. By requiring users to register, the system would discourage illegal actors
from using cryptocurrency. In contrast, licit actors have no need to hide their identity and
should comply with the registration policy.
B. STATES THAT ACCEPT, PLAN TO ADOPT, OR HAVE ISSUED STATE-
BACKED CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Currently, there are no known states that have adopted Bitcoin or any other stateless
cryptocurrency as their national currency; however, there are several states that have
released or are developing their own state-backed cryptocurrency. This section outlines a
selection of countries that have released a sovereign cryptocurrency and are working on
their own bitcoin-like state-backed cryptocurrency. Also, it examines the real-world cases
where Bitcoin has become the preferable form of money.
1. The Venezuelan Petro
In the beginning of 2018, President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela announced to the
world that Venezuela would issue a cryptocurrency that pegs its value to the price of a
barrel of oil.
256
The Venezuelan Petro, which is named after the commodity it represents,
is designed by the Venezuelan government as a cryptocurrency to be bought, sold, and
exchanged for other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Moreover, Venezuela promoted a public
presale of the state-backed cryptocurrency to obtain capital prior to the official release,
successfully raising approximately 735 million USD for the government on opening
day.
257
The Venezuelan government claims that the state-backed cryptocurrency will
256
Fabian Cambero and Girish Gupta, “Maduro Says Venezuela Will Issue $5.9 Billion in Oil-
Backed Cryptocurrency,” Reuters, January 6, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-
economy/maduro-says-venezuela-will-issue-5-9-billion-in-oil-acked-cryptocurrency-idUSKBN1EV02S.
257
Lesley Wroughton and David Alexander, “U.S. Bans Transactions with Venezuela’s Digital
Currency,” Reuters, March 20, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-crypto-currencies-venezuela-usa/
u-s-blocks-use-of-venezuelas-digital-currency-white-house-idUSKBN1GV2AX, sec. Foreign Exchange
Analysis.
74
become widely accepted within the country, allowing the citizens of Venezuela “to make
payments to public institutions, including tax payments, according to official documents
explaining the initiative.”
258
The release of the Petro, however, has had a number of critics internationally, and
the future of the Petro is uncertain as hyperinflation and a weak economy continue to take
their toll on the U.S. sanctioned country. Robert Looney asserts that Venezuela is plagued
by a series of poor economic choices, which have resulted in the hyperinflation of the state
fiat currency, the bolivar, with an inflation rate expected to reach over 3400 percent by
2019.
259
He explains, “The Petro’s primary function would be to secretly move cash out
of a collapsing economy and convert it into foreign currency, making a Petro a digital
money laundering tool for government insiders and their cronies.”
260
Moreover, There are
a number of countries that argue the petro is a simply a ploy by the Venezuelan government
to raise capital and skirt international sanctions in the process. For instance, via executive
order, the United States has released guidance on the petro prohibiting U.S. citizens from
purchasing or trading with the Venezuelan virtual currency.
261
Because the cryptocurrency
is peer-to-peer, Venezuela can transfer wealth in and out of the state without dealing with
the institutions that assist in enforcing international sanctions.
Another interesting revelation is that the Venezuelan government was not acting
unilaterally in the design and release of the state backed cryptocurrency. According to a
March exclusive issue by Time, the Petro release is a joint experiment between Russia and
Venezuela to design and test a virtual currency in a sanctioned country.
262
The exclusive
258
Rachelle Krygier, “Venezuela Launches the ‘Petro,’ Its Cryptocurrency,” Washington Post,
February 20, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/20/venezuela-
launches-the-petro-its-cryptocurrency/, sec. WorldViews.
259
Robert Looney, “Hyperinflation Is Crippling Venezuela, but Maduro Has No Interest in Fixing It,”
World Politics Review, January 23, 2018, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/24035/
hyperinflation-is-crippling-venezuela-but-maduro-has-no-interest-in-fixing-it.
260
Robert Looney, “Venezuela’s Economic Collapse,” Milken Institute Review, February 28, 2018,
http://www.milkenreview.org/articles/venezuelas-economic-collapse.
261
Wroughton and Alexander, “U.S. Bans Transactions.”
262
Simon Shuster, “Exclusive: Russia Secretly Helped Venezuela Launch a Cryptocurrency to Evade
U.S. Sanctions,” Time, March 20, 2018, http://time.com/5206835/exclusive-russia-petro-venezuela-
cryptocurrency/?iid=sr-link1.
75
notes that Russia has expressed interest in creating its own official “CryptoRuble;”
however, the Russians are concerned about the economic and political backlash they might
face. Simon Shuster comments, “instead of putting the ruble at risk, Russia encouraged its
ally in Latin America to run the experiment on itself.”
263
Ultimately, the pending success
or failure of the Venezuelan cryptocurrency and its effectiveness in dodging U.S. sanctions
may pay dividends to other internationally-sanctioned countries, as the Petro becomes a
baseline test that other countries—like Russia—can use in the development of their own
cryptocurrency.
The Petro may not be an ideal example of a state-backed cryptocurrency due to the
unique circumstances around its development and the economic status of its backer nation;
nonetheless, its emergence is the first case of a state-backed cryptocurrency to be sold as a
part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. One day after the launch of the Petro and after raising
a proclaimed 735 million USD, Maduro announced the Petro Gold, a cryptocurrency that
is planned to be backed by the Venezuela’s gold commodity.
264
Irrespective of the
intentions for its use, the Petro as a state-backed cryptocurrency, has proven that a state can
develop and market a cryptocurrency internationally.
2. The Russian “CryptoRuble”
The Russian Federation has also announced it is interested in the creation of a state-
backed cryptocurrency. As a complement to Russia’s evolving cryptocurrency initiative,
President Putin recently introduced five directives in October 2017 ordering the creation
of new domestic legislation to tax and regulate cryptocurrency, specifically targeting the
Russian miners, ICOs, and exchanges in Russia.
265
Following the announcement by its
president, Russia has been swept by a wave of cryptocurrency acceptance within the
country. According Shannon Liao, businesses have started accepting cryptocurrency as a
payment method and graphics cards essential to mining cryptocurrency are in short supply
263
Shuster.
264
Brian Ellsworth and Ana Isabel Martinez, “Venezuela Aims for Crypto Alchemy with New ‘Petro
Gold’ Token,” Reuters, February 22, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-crypto-currencies-
venezuela/venezuela-to-launch-petro-gold-cryptocurrency-backed-by-gold-maduro-idUSKCN1G52S2.
265
Liao, “Inside Russia’s Love-Hate Relationship with Bitcoin.”
76
across the country.
266
Also according to Liao, Russia’s official stance on cryptocurrency
has been increasingly unclear over the past few years as it ranges from appearing
increasingly restrictive toward cryptocurrency users whereby the state threatened jail time
to cryptocurrency users, to meeting with prominent founders of cryptocurrency outside of
the state. Liao writes that these new initiatives are “likely part of the digital ruble initiative
that the Russian Central Bank has been pursuing.”
267
By regulating the existing miners,
traders, and exchanges that deal with cryptocurrency, Russia would be better prepared to
introduce and market its own state-backed cryptocurrency.
As aforementioned in the discussion on the Venezuelan Petro, Russia has an
expressed interest in exploring how cryptocurrencies can bypass sanctions and state
borders. Zura Kadushadze and Jim Kyung-Soo Liew write in detail on the CryptoRuble
and Russia’s motivations behind the development of a state-issued cryptocurrency. They
argue, “Russia’s . . . primary goal in issuing a government cryptocurrency is to free their
monetary system from the controls exerted by the Federal Reserve (Fed), European Central
Bank (ECB), and their allied central banks.”
268
They also argue that the Cryptoruble
unchains itself from the western countries banks by “[creating] a buffer layer that only the
Russian government has control over with pertinent information inaccessible to the Fed/
ECB, . . . the U.S., the E.U., etc.”
269
(see Figure 5). In the form imagined by Kadushadze
and Liew, the CryptoRuble would be able to effectively launder money through the Russian
central authority and subject to manipulation at the hands of the Russian oligarchs.
266
Liao.
267
Liao.
268
Zura Kakushadze and Jim Kyung-Soo Liew, “CryptoRuble: From Russia with Love,” November
2, 2017, https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1801/1801.05760.pdf, 3.
269
Kakushadze and Liew, 20.
77
Figure 5. “A Schematic Depiction of the Money Flow
into and from CryptoRuble”
270
Russia has also announced a CryptoRuble registration system to combat the
anonymity inherent in stateless cryptocurrency systems; however, that too, appears to be
dubious in execution. According to news reports released in 2017 by local Russian media,
the proposed CryptoRuble would have a 13 percent tax applied to all unregistered
exchanges of currency.
271
Kakushadze and Liew write that the unregistered user tax is
“akin to a government-mandated money laundering machine and with such a low overhead
should be extremely attractive to all sorts of shady players.”
272
Furthermore, since the
ledger that records all transactions would be maintained by the government, Kakushadze
and Liew assert that Russia could later blackmail unsuspecting illicit actors using the
CryptoRuble to launder money.
270
Source: Kakushadze and Liew, 20.
271
Devin Coldewey, “Russia May Soon Issue Its Own Official Blockchain-Based Currency, the
CryptoRuble,” TechCrunch (blog), October 15, 2017, http://social.techcrunch.com/2017/10/15/russia-may-
soon-issue-its-own-official-blockchain-based-currency-the-cryptoruble/.
272
Kakushadze and Liew, “CryptoRuble: From Russia with Love,” 3.
78
Russia’s proposed CryptoRuble would differ in function from Bitcoin’s to ensure
that the Russian government have complete and solitary control over the cryptocurrency.
As discussed in Chapter II, Bitcoin’s model revolves around a decentralized public ledger
stored within the blockchain and managed by a volunteer ecosystem of incentivized miners
and nodes which expand the blockchain by validating bitcoin transactions. Conversely, the
CryptoRuble would be centralized whereby the Russian government would be solely
responsible for maintaining the cryptoruble ledger and controlling access to the
cryptocurrency. Kakushadze and Liew assert the CryptoRuble would be more efficient than
Bitcoins and the “central banks and sovereign governments . . . more control, not less, than
with the current banking system.”
273
The CryptoRuble has yet to be released, and the
conclusion of many authors concerning the intent of the CryptoRuble are speculative in
nature; nevertheless, the development and future release of a Russian cryptocurrency
provides insight into how a state-backed cryptocurrency could become disruptive to the
international financial system.
3. Countries where Bitcoin Have Become the Trusted Currency
Bitcoin has become a major store of value and trusted money supply for the citizens
of Kenya, Sudan, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Currently, none of the four countries
governments support Bitcoin; however, Bitcoin’s ability to transact internationally and peg
its value to the supply and demand outside of the secluded African countries has made the
cryptocurrency an attractive choice for a store of wealth. Matina Stevis-Gridneff and
Georgi Kantchev note that Bitcoin “is often viewed as a haven from political and economic
turmoil” that plagues many less developed or developing nations.
274
These cases of bitcoin
adoption by the people of the country without the consent of the sovereign government
provides insight to how an actual state-sponsored cryptocurrency might function under
similar circumstances.
Cryptocurrencies are often cited as a means to bypass sanctions as a negative, but
for the citizens of Sudan, Bitcoin offers a way to transact internationally bypassing the
273
Kakushadze and Liew, 3.
274
Stevis-Gridneff and Kantchev, “Bitcoin Is a Hit in Countries.”
79
sanctioned Sudanese government.
275
Similarly, in Zimbabwe where hyperinflation runs
rampant, the classically volatile value of bitcoin has become a source of reliability in
comparison. MacDonald Dzirutwe asserts that inflation in the country has risen to nearly
50 percent per month—despite switching to the U.S. dollar as the official currency for the
country—making bitcoin the de facto currency for many people.
276
In both cases,
cryptocurrency has proven itself to be a reliable supply of money for the people and a
trusted medium of exchange.
Similar to the situation outlined in African countries, Bitcoin has become an outlier
currency among Argentines who are frustrated with the government’s money controls over
the state-backed fiat, the peso. Elena Moreno asserts, “For some Argentines, bitcoin is a
legitimate alternative to state backed currency. According to one estimate, bitcoin users in
Argentina trade $70,000–$80,000 over the counter per day.”
277
As the time of writing,
Argentina’s official stance on virtual currencies is that they are “not legal tender under the
country’s National Constitution, which designated the Central Bank as the only authority
that may issue legal tender.”
278
While 70–80 thousand USD a day may not be a huge
amount, Argentina still stands as a case study of a state wherein the people have chosen
bitcoin as their choice of money over their sovereign currency.
Jill Carlson studies the case of outlier Bitcoin adoption in Argentina and has
attributed four variables why cryptocurrencies could see outlier adoption in a state that
does not currently support virtual currencies. She suggests that the factors of “capital
control circumvention, . . . tax evasion, . . . cultural and ideological factors . . . and the
presence of multiple accepted currencies and exchange rates may play a critical role in
275
Stevis-Gridneff and Kantchev.
276
MacDonald Dzirutwe, “Think Bitcoin’s Getting Expensive? Try Zimbabwe,” Reuters, November
12, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-bitcoin/think-bitcoins-getting-expensive-try-
zimbabwe-idUSKBN1DD0NF.
277
Elena Christine Moreno, Bitcoin in Argentina: Inflation, Currency Restrictions, and the Rise of
Cryptocurrency (Chicago: University of Chicago Law School, 2016),
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1017&context=international_i
mmersion_program_papers.
278
“Digital Currencies,” Perkins Coie.
80
acceptance of a new entrant into the economy.”
279
Although cryptocurrency use in
countries like Kenya, Sudan, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Argentina are not sanctioned
by the governments, an analysis of how bitcoin became a preferred currency would prove
useful for a sovereign state in a similar situation that chooses to implement or adopt a
cryptocurrency; however, such an analysis is outside the scope of this thesis and is one of
the areas this thesis recommends for future research in the conclusion.
4. The U.S. Fedcoin
The U.S. dollar is arguably the most widely used currency on earth. As Kimberly
Amadeo writes, the U.S. dollar “makes up 64 percent of all known central bank foreign
exchange reserves. That makes it the def facto global currency.”
280
As a result of its
importance to the global economy, the U.S. dollar has become trusted, but what if the
United States builds on the earned trust to promote its own sovereign-cryptocurrency for
worldwide use? Enter the fedcoin.
The idea for an official Federal Reserve cryptocurrency (fedcoin) has been widely
explored by scholars who study banking, economics, and virtual currencies. In 2014, JP
Koning first pitched the fedcoin, and among scholars, the idea has since gained popularity
to become the default title of a theoretical U.S. backed cryptocurrency.
281
From the
literature this researcher examined, most authors envision the theoretical fedcoin as
blockchain based, centralized in control, and pegged to the U.S. dollar. As stated Morten
Bech and Rodney Garratt on the behalf of the BIS,
[T]he idea is for the Federal Reserve to create a cryptocurrency that is
similar to bitcoin. However, unlike with bitcoin, only the Federal Reserve
would be able to create Fed Coins and there would be one-for-one
convertibility with cash and reserve. Fedcoins would only be created
(destroyed) if an equivalent amount of cash or reserves were destroyed
279
Jill Carlson, Cryptocurrency and Capital Controls (Oxford: University of Oxford, 2016),
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3046954, 13–14.
280
Kimberly Amadeo, “Global Currency: Definition, Role of the Dollar,” The Balance, last updated
February 19, 2018, https://www.thebalance.com/world-currency-3305931.
281
JP Koning, “Fedcoin,” Moneyness (blog), October 19, 2014, http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/
2014/10/fedcoin.html.
81
(created) at the same time. Like cash, Fedcoin would be decentralised in
transaction and centralised in supply.
282
Although Bech and Garratt envision the Fedcoin as a “third component of the monetary
base, alongside cash and reserves,”
283
not all researchers believe that a Fedcoin is feasible.
Berentsen and Schar have come to the conclusion that a central bank
cryptocurrency permitting anonymity is unrealistic. They write, “no reputable central bank
would issue a decentralized virtual currency where users can remain anonymous.”
284
Instead, they argue in favor for “Central Bank Electronic Money,” which is comprised of
a centralized and not anonymous, virtual, and monopolized by the central bank. Figure 6
depicts the different structures between a central bank cryptocurrency and central bank
electronic money by Berentsen and Schar. Nevertheless, scholars agree that there is
breathing room in the global economy for the creation of a U.S.-backed digital currency,
cryptocurrency, or otherwise. As Vigna and Casey state,
the dollar is already the world’s primary reserve and commercial currency,
but this [a U.S. digital dollar] would give it an even bigger edge. That’s
because people in countries whose currencies aren’t trusted or who are
barred or restricted from buying foreign currencies—think China,
Argentina, Russia—Could now easily obtain the one currency that has long
symbolized international stability.
285
In the near future, it is likely that the United States will be forced to confront new
virtual challenges as individuals worldwide find new and cheaper methods to transfer
money and transact. Chris Telley argues, “the U.S. national security community must
understand the power of cryptocurrencies, recognize threat adaptations, and invest in
capabilities to influence the digital economy environment.”
286
The development of a
282
Morten Bech and Rodney Garratt, “Central Bank Cryptocurrencies,” BIS Quarterly Review
(September 2017), https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1709f.pdf, 63.
283
Bech and Garratt, 61.
284
Aleksander Berentsen, and Fabian Schar, “The Case for Central Bank Electronic Money and the
Non-Case for Central Bank Cryptocurrencies.” Economic Research: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
100, no. 2 (February 2018): 104.
285
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 304.
286
Telley, “A Coin for the Tsar: The Two Disruptive Sides of Cryptocurrency,” 4.
82
cryptocurrency fedcoin—centralized or decentralized, pseudonymous or otherwise—
would enable the United States to influence the digital economy and provide it an
advantage over sovereign countries that have proposed their own sovereign virtual
currencies, such as Russia’s CryptoRuble.
Figure 6. The Control Structure of Currencies
287
5. Other Countries Studying or Developing Cryptocurrencies
Venezuela, Russia, and the United States are not the only countries interested in
studying and developing cryptocurrency. Prasad writes that in addition to Venezuela,
Russia, and the United States, the countries of China, Japan, France, Canada, United
Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, Philippines,
Indonesia, India, Lebanon, Eastern Caribbean, South Korea, Israel, and the Netherlands,
all have active programs exploring blockchain technology as a currency or have officially
287
Source: Berentsen and Schar, “The Case for Central Bank,” 98.
83
announced plans to release their own virtual currency based on the blockchain.
288
Another
future application of cryptocurrency could be a regional supranational cryptocurrency, like
a virtual euro coin, which would encompass an entire region and be accepted by a number
sovereignties.
C. POTENTIAL CHALLENGES TO ADOPTING CRYPTOCURRENCY
A state adopting an existing cryptocurrency or creating its own must also confront
a number of variables to protect its economic and political wellbeing. This section provides
a selective list of four obstacles or vulnerabilities that can hinder the cryptocurrency
adoption process: a speculative attack on a sovereign state’s central bank, domestic
pushback on cryptocurrency acceptance within a sovereign state, the pushback from the
third-party institutions that stand to lose profits from the implementation of a peer-to-peer
state-backed cryptocurrency, and the 51 percent vulnerability that malicious actors could
use to disrupt or discredit a sovereign-state’s cryptocurrency system.
1. Speculative Attack
One weakness of a sovereign state adopting or recognizing a stateless
cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is that the adopting country then becomes vulnerable to a
speculative attack. Nicholas Plassaras explicates “a speculative attack on a currency occurs
when an investor wishes to take advantage of a ‘weak currency,’ a currency that has
depreciated in value relative to other currencies.”
289
The objective of a speculative attack
is that it takes advantage of a discrepancy called a maturity mismatch of funds, a term used
in this case when the bank is forced to buy the weaker currency at a loss. Plassaras asserts,
“This discrepancy [maturity mismatch] gradually depletes the bank’s supply of the attacked
currency over time,” and if not properly protected against, the attack could “[trigger]
288
Prasad, Central Banking in a Digital Age, 34–39.
289
Plassaras describes the speculative attack, writing “the attack begins by taking what is known as a
‘short position’ in the currency. To do this, the attacker borrows a sum of the weak currency and sells it for
a stronger (more valuable) currency, with the intention of buying the weak currency back for less than the
attacker sold it for. If the currency continues to depreciate in value after the short sale, the attacker makes a
profit when they buy it back.” Plassaras, “Regulating Digital Currencies.
84
destabilization in the foreign currency exchange market.”
290
Plassaras highlights that
traditionally, international institutions like the IMF keep reserves of currencies to provide
assistance to the banks when needed and to protect against speculative attacks. However,
the IMF does not currently hold any supply of cryptocurrency, and therefore it cannot assist
banks with absorbing a maturity mismatch involving cryptocurrencies.
291
Although Plassaras’s solution of the banks vulnerability to maturity mismatch
would be for the IMF to hold a reserve stock of cryptocurrency, he also notes there are
obstacles to this proposal.
292
First, he notes that that Article VII of the IMF’s Articles of
Agreement “only authorizes the IMF to collect currency from member nations.”
293
Second, if cryptocurrencies become a part of the IMF reserves, who would be responsible
for the purchase of the cryptocurrency? If sovereign states were to adopt or accept a
stateless cryptocurrency like Bitcoin before adequate measures are put in place to protect
banks from maturity mismatches, they would find themselves at higher risk to speculative
attack.
2. Domestic Pushback as an Accepted Currency
Adopting a state-approved cryptocurrency carries significant hurdles in both
implementation and adoption. As highlighted in Chapter II, the concepts of the Bitcoin
protocol and blockchain are complex. As a consequence of the intricacies of
cryptocurrency, citizens, unfamiliar with cryptocurrency technology, may refuse to trust
cryptocurrencies over a money supply that can be physically seen or held. Likewise, Vigna
and Casey highlight that unique to each country, there are significant social and cultural
barriers that a state-sanctioned cryptocurrency must overcome to become widely accepted
and adopted.
294
The adoption of a cryptocurrency by the state would only be successful if
the citizens trust and use the cryptocurrency as a form of money.
290
Plassaras, 398.
291
Plassaras, 399.
292
Plassaras, 400.
293
Plassaras, 401.
294
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 194.
85
3. Resident Institutional Pushback
Even if a cryptocurrency similar in concept to Bitcoin was adopted by a sovereign
state, a number of institutional pushbacks internal to the state could disrupt the adoption
process. As Chapter II discusses, cryptocurrency is peer-to-peer and avoids the traditional
third-parties associated with fiat currencies; those third-parties, like banks, stand to lose
profits if a state-sanctioned cryptocurrency is introduced into the economy. In Prasad’s
2018 study of how cryptocurrency would alter central banking, he comes to the conclusion
that
Financial institutions, especially banks, could face challenges to their
business models, as new technologies facilitate the entry of institutions (or
decentralized mechanisms) that can undertake financial intermediation and
overcome information asymmetries. Banks will find it difficult to continue
collecting economic rents on some activities that cross-subsidize other
activities. The emergence of new institutions and mechanisms could
improve financial intermediation but will pose significant challenges in
terms of regulation and financial stability.
295
As a consequence, sovereign states may find significant political barriers to the
implementation of cryptocurrency erected by political lobbyists representing the
businesses that stand to lose revenue from the introduction of cryptocurrency.
4. 51 Percent Attack
One of the most discussed weaknesses in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is the notion
of a 51 percent attack. As discussed in Chapter II, Bitcoin miners achieve consensus on the
correct blockchain and valid transactions through a distributed network of individual
miners building the blockchain on top of the longest branch of valid transactions.
296
In
theory, a 51 percent attack occurs when a malicious actor gains control of the majority (51
percent) of the network to obtain mining consensus on future transactions of the system.
297
Recall as discussed in Chapter II, miners will by default attempt to build on the longest
blockchain; thus, as a result of controlling the majority of the network, a malicious attacker
295
Prasad, Central Banking in a Digital Age, 4.
296
Arvind Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 28–34.
297
Narayanan et al., 48.
86
could likely succeed in creating the longest branch of the blockchain.
298
The malicious
actor could then add new invalid blocks with invalid transactions to the blockchain to
manipulate the public ledger.
299
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are praised for their
resilience to outside attack, but the 51 percent attack is one the greatest weaknesses of
decentralized virtual currencies. Similarly, Vigna and Casey submit that the 51 percent
attack “eats at a lot of bitcoin intellectuals. Why? Because it’s the one irrefutable structural
weakness in the bitcoin system.”
300
However, the 51 percent attack is limited to manipulating the future creation of
blocks and cannot alter the protocol by which Bitcoin operates, nor can it alter public ledger
prior to the attack. The security inherent in Bitcoin’s blockchain protocol that controls the
rules of the system and the distributed public ledger is virtually uncrackable due to safety
guaranteed by the hash function (as highlighted in Chapter II).
301
According to Narayanan
et al., if an attacker in control of 51 percent of the nodes were to attempt to manipulate the
system, such as to steal bitcoins from another user, to spend bitcoins that the attacker does
not own, or to change the block reward to a greater quantity of bitcoins, the Bitcoin network
on the honest nodes would ignore the invalid actions.
302
More importantly, if attackers
were to somehow gain control of at least 51 percent of the network, their attack would be
evident to the honest nodes. Narayanan et al. assert, “If there were, in fact, actual signs of
a 51 percent attack, what would probably happen is that the developers would notice it and
react.”
303
The attack would have little bearing on the network’s users or capacity; instead,
it would damage Bitcoin’s trust, an injury that would fair far worse to the cryptocurrency
than a temporary disruption in services.
As stated in the second chapter of this thesis, the concept of trust is essential to any
currency’s adoption as a form of money. Narayanan et al. argue, “It is not only possible,
298
Narayanan et al., 48.
299
Narayanan et al., 48.
300
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 155.
301
Narayanan et al., Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies, 1.
302
Narayanan et al., 48–49.
303
Narayanan et al., 49.
87
but in fact likely, that a 51 percent attacker of any sort will destroy confidence in the
system.”
304
Accounting for the fact that bitcoin’s value relies on the principles of supply
and demand principles, if the cryptocurrency were to lose trust, the likely effect would
result in the decline in value of bitcoin. Narayanan et al. emphasize that the point of a 51
percent attack is one of disruption to “destroy confidence” because no other reason really
“make[s] sense from a financial point of view.”
305
To achieve the majority control of the
network is no small feat, considering the Bitcoin network is rather large and interconnected
worldwide by anonymous individual users who choose to participate in the process;
however, the task is not impossible, especially for a sovereign state with a large amount of
fiscal resources that is set on disrupting cryptocurrencies. As a result, the 51 percent attack
remains a valid concern for any state adopting a decentralized, proof-of-work
cryptocurrency.
D. CONCLUSION
Currently, no state other than Venezuela has released its own cryptocurrency, but
it is likely that other states will develop and release their own version of the blockchain-
based virtual currency in the near future. Cryptocurrency’s potential to interconnect the
globe and uplift the unbanked in poverty-stricken states, or to be used by sanctioned
countries to bypass international laws, makes cryptocurrency a potentially powerful and
disruptive tool for sovereign states. Its adoption is a double edge sword carrying a number
of benefits and vulnerabilities in implementation and use. Venezuela is one of the first
states to take advantage of a sovereign cryptocurrency. Additionally, with dozens of
countries investigating the prospects of cryptocurrency, it is very likely that other countries
will develop and introduce their own sovereign cryptocurrencies in the near future. This
chapter has discussed the advantages and drawbacks in a sovereign cryptocurrency. Next
chapter is this thesis’s conclusion, and it draws on the discussions in Chapter III, IV, and
V to analyze how cryptocurrencies affect sovereign states.
304
Narayanan et al., 49.
305
Narayanan et al., 51.
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VI. CONCLUSION
Cryptocurrency is a disruptive technology easily accessible by illicit actors,
resilient to sovereign state and international laws, and it is a capable medium to transfer
wealth from person-to-person across multiple jurisdictions. Therefore, it is necessary that
sovereign states carefully consider the best approach to limit illegal or disruptive
cryptocurrency use. As Vigna and Casey assert,
the decentralized bitcoin network and its public ledger, the blockchain, are
at their essence a radical new way of dealing with information. . . .[I]t takes
information about monetary transactions and economic exchanges out of
the hands of monopolist institutions and creates a decentralized mechanism
for society to judge the validity of that information.
306
As a consequence of cryptocurrency’s ability to subvert domestic and international
economic models and law enforcement structure, sovereign states have issued a variety of
legislation—varying by country—to limit cryptocurrency’s impact on the state. To address
the relationship between the sovereign state and cryptocurrency technology, this thesis
asked the following primary question: What options are available to the sovereign state to
limit cryptocurrency’s capacity to challenge domestic and international laws? To further
explore the main question, this thesis also examines the following three subquestions. First,
what allows cryptocurrency to sidestep the established financial order and enforcement
institutions? Second, what are the challenges sovereign states face when introducing
cryptocurrency legislation? Finally, as cryptocurrency technology becomes more popular
and countries begin developing their own blockchain-based tools, what factors would
inhibit or promote a sovereign state from developing its own sovereign cryptocurrency?
To address these questions, this thesis is divided into six chapters. After a detailed
literature review in the first chapter, the thesis’s second chapter dissect the technology
behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency ecosystems. Chapters III, IV, and V detail
banning, regulating, and adopting cryptocurrency by sovereign states to highlight the
consequences of each action by providing real-world examples of each approach. In
306
Vigna and Casey, The Age of Cryptocurrency, 310.
90
addition to finding states can ban, regulate, or adopt cryptocurrency, this thesis
recommends that states carefully consider these options and develop a combination of the
three approaches appropriate to political, economic, and fiscal interests. Additionally, this
thesis recommends three specific approaches the international community could take to
better mitigate the potential for cryptocurrency to be used disruptively.
A. FINDINGS
Cryptocurrency’s ability to transact from peer-to-peer while prioritizing anonymity
has complicated the enforcement of previously established sovereign and international
laws. Alone, cryptocurrencies are not illicit tools, but their features allow them to be used
as a tool to transact without governmental oversight. As this thesis highlights in the
literature review, the reduction of country’s sovereign power to enforce laws and prosecute
illicit actors have also reduced countries’ capability to enforce domestic, homeland
security, and homeland defense policies. The benefits offered in cryptocurrency
transactions have allowed organized crime and drug traffickers, terrorist groups, rouge
states like North Korea, and sanctioned countries like Russia to conduct transactions
without U.S. or other international interference. To examine how cryptocurrency provides
near anonymous, stateless, peer-to-peer transactions, Chapter II of this thesis dissects the
cryptocurrency Bitcoin and the Bitcoin ecosystem to analyze the technology permitting
Bitcoin to operate without the need of a sovereign government.
As discussed in Chapter III, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin will continue to flourish
regardless of whether or not a country incorporates a complete ban on cryptocurrency
transactions. Sovereign states have the option to outlaw cryptocurrency mining, exchanges,
trading, or fundraising through ICOs; however, the stateless nature of cryptocurrency
makes it accessible to any individual with access to the Internet. Chapter III notes that
China’s government and central bank have all but outlawed ownership of cryptocurrency
in an effort to gain greater command over domestic capital controls and the export of
Chinese wealth, forcing the majority of Chinese based cryptocurrency mining companies
and exchanges to migrate to less restrictive countries, like Singapore and Canada. Despite
the heavy Chinese restrictions on cryptocurrency, the stateless cryptocurrency network
91
continued to thrive, and the citizens of China will continue to access and transact with
cryptocurrency unless the government successfully bans access to digital wallets and
exchanges.
This thesis also has found a number of technical and political hurdles challenging
sovereign states’ ability to regulate cryptocurrency. Chapter IV notes that since
cryptocurrency has emerged, countries have struggled to define or categorize it under the
framework of existing laws. Depending on the country and regulatory agency, virtual
currencies—the category cryptocurrency falls under—are classified as either a security,
currency, property, or commodity. Moreover, the term cryptocurrency is often referred to
in the pejorative, insinuating that cryptocurrency is a form of money that is unregulated
and associated with illicit circles; however, owning, investing in, or transacting with
cryptocurrency is not inherently criminal in nature. To date, there has yet to be any
internationally agreed upon method, minimum standard, metric, or guidance for countries
to pursue cryptocurrency legislation. Ultimately, cryptocurrency remains an amorphous
system of electronic money still unrecognized by the majority countries as official method
of transaction.
This thesis has also examined the advantages, disadvantages and limitations in the
introduction of a state-backed sovereign cryptocurrency in Chapter V. This thesis finds that
countries can introduce a sovereign cryptocurrency developed specifically for official use
as an attractive and reliable form of virtual money. Sovereign cryptocurrencies, much like
Bitcoin, are efficient, unforgeable, and easily auditable characteristics provided through
blockchain; however, unlike stateless cryptocurrencies, state-backed cryptocurrencies
would be centrally controlled by the sovereign government or central bank and would
likely minimize or actively disincentivize user anonymity through required registration or
taxing anonymous transactions. Moreover, countries facing international economic
sanctions, like Russia and Venezuela are, could use the disruptive features of
cryptocurrency to their advantage, bypassing sanctioning institutions or countries during
international transfers of wealth. To ensure the state-sponsored cryptocurrency is accepted
transnationally, a sovereign country could buy back or link the value of a state produced
92
commodity like petroleum, natural gas, or gold, forcing other countries to buy in to or
exchange for the sanctioned state cryptocurrency to purchase the given resource.
B. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
After this thesis’s in-depth analysis, this thesis recommends two specific policy
actions that sovereign states and the international community can to take to address future
cryptocurrency strategy. The policy recommendations are to redefine cryptocurrency as its
own category under sovereign law to promote awareness of the laws and drawbacks on
cryptocurrency as well as to create an international standard comprising of a composition
of banning, regulating, and adoption standards that would enable states to reign in and
prosecute undesired cryptocurrency usage under their sovereignty.
1. Redefine Cryptocurrency
To ease the legislative process of introducing new laws and clarify the rules for
domestic companies and citizens, sovereign states could clearly define cryptocurrencies
and other virtual currencies in their own category. This thesis points out that
cryptocurrency is a revolutionary new step forward in innovative, open-source technology,
and unless laws drastically change to restrict cryptocurrencies, companies and businesses
are likely to continue refining blockchain technology well into the future. However, in
countries that embrace technological developments, virtual currency regulations are often
convoluted, ambiguous, and contradictory. The United States is a prime example as it
classifies cryptocurrency as property, a security, or commodity to fit under existing laws
and enumerates a variety of regulatory agencies to individually develop new, state-wide
cryptocurrency guidance. Rather than allowing individual regulatory bodies to interpret
cryptocurrency under their jurisdictions, the creation of an all-encompassing categorization
for virtual currencies with clearly distinct and subordinate legislation, specifically
distinguishing licit and illicit cryptocurrency actions, would prevent confusion regarding
cryptocurrencies among citizens and businesses.
93
2. New International Standards on Cryptocurrency Regulation
A new transnational or international set of regulatory minimums and information
sharing could minimize the disruptive capacity of stateless and state-backed
cryptocurrency transactions. Despite proposals to regulate cryptocurrency on an
international level, there still remains a lack of international standards or minimum
requirements—outside of AML/CTF regulations—for countries to reference when dealing
with limiting, prohibiting, reporting, or using cryptocurrency exchanges, users, and miners.
A common framework of cryptocurrency regulation, possibly enforced by international
organizations and agreements (such as the IMF or Basel banking accords), would allow
governments to work together to monitor and track illicit transactions occurring across
sovereign borders. Furthermore, international institutions will be forced in the near-future
to create guidelines or restrictions for transactions with sovereign cryptocurrency.
Sovereign cryptocurrencies, like the Petro and CryptoRuble, facilitate new means for
countries to move money that they otherwise would be unable to using traditional fiat, thus
avoiding transnational banking oversight and imposed sanctions. The creation of
internationally agreed upon regulatory minimums for cryptocurrencies could potentially
alleviate the disruptive effects from the introduction of new sovereign cryptocurrency.
C. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
This thesis discusses a number of current regulatory actions taken by different
countries but is unable to provide analysis of the effectiveness of cryptocurrency
legislation. For future research, this thesis recommends research into the development of a
metric to measure the effectiveness of existing legislation to determine if sovereign states
have prevented illicit transactions in accordance with AML/CTF standards. Additionally,
new laws and regulations need to be designed to counter sovereign-state developed
cryptocurrencies, therefore warranting research into how disruptive state cryptocurrencies,
such as the Petro or CryptoRuble, could be contained, exploited, or challenged. Another
potential research topic could analyze how the regime type of government (democratic,
authoritarian, etc.) correlates to how the government is to regulate cryptocurrency. For
example, Russia, Sudan, China, and Venezuela all have aspects of authoritarianism in their
94
governmental structures; however, their approaches to cryptocurrency widely differs.
Scholars could potentially use this prospective research question to predict future
regulatory responses by sovereign states concerning new innovative and disruptive
technologies like cryptocurrency.
D. CONCLUSION
The propensity of individuals, criminal organizations, terrorist groups, and
sovereign states to use cryptocurrency to ignore domestic and international laws and reduce
the security of sovereign states prompts action by countries around the globe. Keeping in
mind cryptocurrencies’ ability to challenge sovereign states’ capacity to enforce domestic
and international laws, individual countries would be wise to develop their own legislative
approach combining regulating, adopting, and banning specific aspects, while participating
in an international discussion to develop a global cryptocurrency standard.
95
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