Bitcoin has, since 2009, become an increasingly popular online currency, in large part because it resists regulation and provides anonymity. We discuss how Bitcoin has become both a highly useful tool for criminals and a lucrative target for crime, and argue that this arises from the same essential ideological and design choices that have driven Bitcoin’s success to date. In this paper, we survey
... [Show full abstract] the landscape of Bitcoin-related crime, such as dark markets and bitcoin theft, and speculate about possible future possibilities, including tax evasion and money laundering.