IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v25y2020i3p456-472.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Producing Trust Among Illicit Actors: A Techno-Social Approach to an Online Illicit Market

Author

Listed:
  • Angus Bancroft

    (University of Edinburgh, UK)

  • Tim Squirrell

    (University of Edinburgh, UK)

  • Andreas Zaunseder

    (University of Aberdeen, UK)

  • Irene Rafanell

    (University of the West of Scotland, UK)

Abstract

Illicit market exchanges in cybercriminal markets are plagued by problems of verifiability and enforceability: trust is one way to ensure reliable exchange. It is fragile and hard to establish. One way to do that is to use the administrative structure of the digital market to control transactions. This is common among a specific type of market – darknet cryptomarkets. These are sites for the sale of illicit goods and services, hosted anonymously using the Tor darknet. However, reliance by users on the technology and the market administrators exposes users to excessive risk. We examine a case of a market that rejects several key technological features now common in cryptomarkets but that is nonetheless reliable and robust. We apply a techno-social approach that looks at the way participants use and combine technologies with trust relationships. The study was designed to capture the interactional context of the illicit market. We aimed to examine both person-to-person interaction and the technical infrastructure the market relied on. We find that the social space of the market maintains itself through a shared common security orientation, community participation in key decisions about products sold, performing trust signalling, and relying on lateral trust between members. There are implications for how resilience in cryptomarkets is understood.

Suggested Citation

  • Angus Bancroft & Tim Squirrell & Andreas Zaunseder & Irene Rafanell, 2020. "Producing Trust Among Illicit Actors: A Techno-Social Approach to an Online Illicit Market," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(3), pages 456-472, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:25:y:2020:i:3:p:456-472
    DOI: 10.1177/1360780419881158
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1360780419881158
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1360780419881158?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dodd, Nigel, 2018. "The social life of Bitcoin," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 69229, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ben Collier & Richard Clayton & Alice Hutchings & Daniel Thomas, 2021. "Cybercrime is (often) boring: Infrastructure and alienation in a deviant subculture [Producing Trust among Illicit Actors: A Techno-Social Approach to an Online Illicit Market]," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 61(5), pages 1407-1423.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Koray Caliskan, 2022. "The Elephant in the Dark: A New Framework for Cryptocurrency Taxation and Exchange Platform Regulation in the US," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Yunpeng Xiao & Bufan Deng & Siqi Chen & Kyrie Zhixuan Zhou & Ray LC & Luyao Zhang & Xin Tong, 2023. ""Centralized or Decentralized?": Concerns and Value Judgments of Stakeholders in the Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Market," Papers 2311.10990, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    3. Eduardo Ferraciolli & Tanya Araújo, 2023. "Agent-based Modeling and the Sociology of Money: a Framework for the Study of Coordination and Plurality," Working Papers REM 2023/0285, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    4. Xiao, Yunpeng & Deng, Bufan & Chen, Siqi & Zhou, Kyrie Zhixuan & LC, RAY & Zhang, Luyao & Tong, Xin, 2023. ""Centralized or Decentralized?": Concerns and Value Judgments of Stakeholders in the Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Market," OSF Preprints evz4p, Center for Open Science.
    5. Juneman Abraham & Dian Utami Sutiksno & Nuning Kurniasih & Ari Warokka, 2019. "Acceptance and Penetration of Bitcoin: The Role of Psychological Distance and National Culture," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, July.
    6. Caferra, Rocco & Tedeschi, Gabriele & Morone, Andrea, 2021. "Bitcoin: Bubble that bursts or Gold that glitters?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    7. Silvia Semenzin & David Rozas & Samer Hassan, 2022. "Blockchain-based application at a governmental level: disruption or illusion? The case of Estonia [A systematic analysis of applications of blockchain in healthcare]," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 41(3), pages 386-401.
    8. Haynes, Paul & Hietanen, Joel, 2023. "Marketing without trust? – Blockchain technologies in the sharing economy as assemblage and pharmakon," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    9. Ed Saiedi & Anders Broström & Felipe Ruiz, 2021. "Global drivers of cryptocurrency infrastructure adoption," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 353-406, June.
    10. Abderahman Rejeb & John G. Keogh & Horst Treiblmaier, 2019. "Leveraging the Internet of Things and Blockchain Technology in Supply Chain Management," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-22, July.
    11. Filipe Calvão, 2019. "Crypto‐miners: Digital labor and the power of blockchain technology," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 123-134, January.
    12. Apergis, Nicholas & Koutmos, Dimitrios & Payne, James E., 2021. "Convergence in cryptocurrency prices? the role of market microstructure," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:25:y:2020:i:3:p:456-472. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.