Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoins: How Much Illegal Activity Is Financed Through Cryptocurrencies?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3102645 Around $72 billion of illegal activity per year involves bitcoin, which is close to the scale of the US and European markets for illegal drugs. The illegal share of bitcoin activity declines with mainstream interest in bitcoin and with the emergence of more opaque cryptocurrencies. The techniques developed in this paper have applications in cryptocurrency surveillance. Our findings suggest that cryptocurrencies are transforming the way black markets operate by enabling “black e-commerce.”