The Impact of Covid-19 on the Future of Law

The chapters in this volume focus on the future of law and related disciplines: human rights and access to medical care, corruption and money laundering in state procurement, counterfeit medical products, IPR waiver on COVID-19 vaccines, emergency powers, freedom of expression, prison healthcare, the impact on labour law, access to courts and digital court processes, access to education and the impact on insurance law are but a few possible topics which are addressed

A COMPARISON OF REGULATION OF BITCOIN AS CRYPTO (DIGITAL) CURRENCY

This study is a literature review study aims to compare government policies towards Bitcoin as a digital currency. The government policies studied were the policies of the American, British, Japanese and Indonesian. The data collected were the data of legislation and the results of previous studies. The results of this study found that each country has different policies regarding digital currencies. In America and Singapore, digital currency is considered property and only applies to some circles and areas. Meanwhile, Japan and Indonesia have the similar policy in which prohibiting the use of digital currency as a means of payment. However, this policy is still under review. This study concludes that every country continues to use conventional money as the main means of payment, although it is possible that there will be policy changes in the future. Currently, each country has also conducted special studies on digital currency because there is the possibility of using digital currency for money laundering crimes

The role of information systems in the prevention and detection of transnational and international crime

© Cambridge University Press 2014. All around the world criminal activity remains at the forefront of governmental concerns, not only as a problem that distorts the very fabric of society within the confines of national jurisdictions, but also as a problem that cuts across national borders to exhibit a global dimension. The international dimension of criminal activity remains critical and is generally characterized by a complexity that is unique and requires action on many different levels. Criminals set out to mask their illegal activities and deliberately generate complexity as a means of concealment. In doing so, they exploit new developments in technology that assist them in achieving their ends. This criminality exhibits forms of innovation that stretch far beyond traditional criminal activity (e.g., drug and human trafficking) and manages to attach itself within the broader fabric of society by exploiting the very latest developments. This evolution is necessary as criminals seek not only to escape arrest, prosecution and conviction, but also to enjoy the fruits of their criminality (mostly financial gains). Thus, they seek to develop ways of exploiting the various diffuse norms of social interaction (e.g., trust), financial modes of conduct (e.g., cash-based economies), technological and communication developments (e.g., Internet), and thereby minimize the possibility for detection. By limiting the resources that can be made available for prevention (or making them obsolete when developing new criminal behaviour), they participate in this co-evolution actively; and this they achieve by generating complexity

(WP 2013-09) Virtual Currency and the Financial System: The Case of Bitcoin

Technological development and the increased use of the internet have led to the proliferation of virtual communities. Some of these communities have created and circulated their own currency for exchanging goods and services. Bitcoin is currently the most popular among these virtual or digital currencies and has been in news recently because of the wild fluctuations in its ‘value’ and also significant venture capital investment in entities associated with it.1 Bitcoin is relevant in several areas of the financial system and is therefore of interest to central banks, consumers and investors. Digital currencies are part of a broader group of virtual currencies that include credit card points, air miles, loyalty points and coupons (Chart 1). With the advent of the Internet, mobile devices and detailed consumer information, companies are increasingly using digital currencies as a marketing tool. As a result, there has been a sharp increase in the use of digital currencies, particularly for app-based coins and tokens, mobile coupons, and personal data exchanged for digital content. As these trends evolve, digital currencies have the potential to become more popular and compete with traditional currencies. This paper aims to provide some clarity in particular on Bitcoin, its role and potential future use in the financial system and the risks associated with this form of digital currency.. It will begin by providing a short introduction to the Bitcoin network as well as describe the benefits of allowing the Bitcoin network to develop and innovate. It will highlight concerns for consumers, policymakers and financial regulators. Next it will analyze the role that Bitcoin could play in the financial system. The paper will conclude by providing recommendations to address policymakers’ concerns while allowing for further innovation within the Bitcoin network. An initial comprehensive overview of this kind is absent from the existing literature. This paper intends to fill that gap in the literature

Bitcoin: the wrong implementation of the right idea at the right time

This paper is a study into some of the regulatory implications of cryptocurrencies using the CAMPO research framework (Context, Actors, Methods, Methods, Practice, Outcomes). We explain in CAMPO format why virtual currencies are of interest, how self-regulation has failed, and what useful lessons can be learned. We are hopeful that the full paper will produce useful and semi-permanent findings into the usefulness of virtual currencies in general, block chains as a means of mining currency, and the profundity of current ‘media darling’ currency Bitcoin as compared with the development of block chain generator Ethereum. While virtual currencies can play a role in creating better trading conditions in virtual communities, despite the risks of non-sovereign issuance and therefore only regulation by code (Brown/Marsden 2013), the methodology used poses significant challenges to researching this ‘community’, if BitCoin can even be said to have created a single community, as opposed to enabling an alternate method of exchange for potentially all virtual community transactions. First, BitCoin users have transparency of ownership but anonymity in many transactions, necessary for libertarians or outright criminals in such illicit markets as #SilkRoad. Studying community dynamics is therefore made much more difficult than even such pseudonymous or avatar based communities as Habbo Hotel, World of Warcraft or SecondLife. The ethical implications of studying such communities raise similar problems as those of Tor, Anonymous, Lulzsec and other anonymous hacker communities. Second, the journalistic accounts of BitCoin markets are subject to sensationalism, hype and inaccuracy, even more so than in the earlier hype cycle for SecondLife, exacerbated by the first issue of anonymity. Third, the virtual currency area is subject to slowly emerging regulation by financial authorities and police forces, which appears to be driving much of the early adopter community ‘underground’. Thus, the community in 2016 may not bear much resemblance to that in 2012. Fourth, there has been relatively little academic empirical study of the community, or indeed of virtual currencies in general, until relatively recently. Fifth, the dynamism of the virtual currency environment in the face of the deepening mistrust of the financial system after the 2008 crisis is such that any research conclusions must by their nature be provisional and transient. All these challenges, particularly the final three, also raise the motivation for research – an alternative financial system which is separated from the real-world sovereign and which can use code regulation with limited enforcement from offline policing, both returns the study to the libertarian self-regulated environment of early 1990s MUDs, and offers a tantalising prospect of a tool to evade the perils of ‘private profit, socialized risk’ which existing large financial institutions created in the 2008-12 disaster. The need for further research into virtual currencies based on blockchain mining, and for their usage by virtual communities, is thus pressing and should motivate researchers to solve the many problems in methodology for exploring such an environment