Cryptomarkets: A Research Companion

Martin, James A.; Cunliffe, Jack; Munksgaard, Rasmus

doi:10.1108/9781838670306

Cited by 22 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…An extensive body of literature already exists on cryptomarkets, but online services that bring face-to-face drug sellers and buyers together have been studied much less. Recent studies have suggested that the online drug markets are becoming more decentralized, as more users turn to local websites or social media groups like Torilauta (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2020; Martin et al 2019). Consequently, more research should target these new service forms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One form of online interaction where usernames may have a particular significance is the trade of illegal drugs. Nowadays, many drug sellers and buyers use online services to find each other (Martin et al 2019). Making deals with strangers is, however, not without problems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cryptomarkets have lately been of great interest to drug policy scholars. Summaries of previous studies have been provided in the World Drug Report (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2020), as well as by Shortis et al (2020) and Martin et al (2019). For the study at hand, the most relevant data derives from a study on the usernames of drug vendors at AlphaBay (Hämäläinen 2019), which was the largest international cryptomarket between the years 2015 and 2017.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Usernames on a Finnish Online Marketplace for Illegal Drugs

Hämäläinen

Haasio²,

Harviainen³

2021

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Usernames play a major role in online communication by providing a vital first impression and including clues about the identities and personal characteristics of users. Usernames are extremely important in the online trade of illegal drugs, which carries several risks and therefore requires a high degree of trust between the transaction parties. This study examines how sellers and buyers of illegal drugs represent themselves in their usernames. Data on 1,654 usernames collected from a Finnish darknet marketplace, Torilauta (2017–2020) are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The usernames are mostly in Finnish and often feature slang and spoken language expressions. Many names include clues about a user’s age, gender, and location. References to various illegal drugs in usernames were found to express a close relationship with the substances. In contrast, they only rarely utilize typical real-life marketing strategies, which suggests that the users do not seek publicity and do not wish to enhance their online reputation. Differences between drug sellers’ and buyers’ usernames are minimal, possibly because of group overlap. Overall, it appears that the users aim to blend in with the drug user community rather than stand out from it by building distinctive images of themselves.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Usernames on a Finnish Online Marketplace for Illegal Drugs

Hämäläinen

Haasio²,

Harviainen³

2021

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“…Interestingly, cryptomarket scholarship is often distinguished by a broad international participation and cross-disciplinary research teams [32]. Presented practices may help in this regard, setting the research framework for academics coming from different traditions and preferring the guidelines of different review boards.…”

Section: How To Do No Harm: Guidelines For Drug Study Of the Dark Webmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information Protection in Dark Web Drug Markets Research

Harviainen¹,

Haasio²,

Ruokolainen³

et al. 2021

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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In recent years, there have increasingly been conflicting calls for more government surveillance online and, paradoxically, increased protection of the privacy and anonymity of individuals. Many corporations and groups globally have come under fire for sharing data with law enforcement agencies as well as for refusing to cooperate with said agencies, in order to protect their customers. In this study, we focus on Dark Web drug trading sites as an exemplary case of problematic areas of information protection, and ask what practices should be followed when gathering data from the Dark Web. Using lessons from an ongoing research project, we outline best practices for protecting the safety of the people under study on these sites without compromising the quality of research data gathering.

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“…Most tokens, including the ones in healthcare, are present on the online financial cryptomarkets -the online "Wall Street" for cryptocurrencies trading [11]. They all belong to the first generation of blockchains, defined as public ledgers to store cryptographically signed financial transactions.…”

Section: Background On Blockchain Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%