When Criminals Abuse the Blockchain: Establishing Personal Jurisdiction in a Decentralised Environment

IF 1.3 Q1 LAW Laws Pub Date : 2023-04-15 DOI:10.3390/laws12020033
C. Watters
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引用次数: 4

Abstract

In August of 2022, the United States Department of Treasury sanctioned the virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, an open-source and fully decentralised piece of software running on the Ethereum blockchain, subsequently leading to the arrest of one of its developers in The Netherlands. Not only was this the first time the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) extended its authority to sanction a foreign ‘person’ to software, but the decentralised nature of the software and global usage highlight the challenge of establishing jurisdiction over decentralised software and its global user base. The government claims jurisdiction over citizens, residents, and any assets that pass through the country’s territory. As a global financial center with most large tech companies, this often facilitates the establishment of jurisdiction over global conduct that passes through US servers. However, decentralised programs on blockchains with nodes located around the world challenge this traditional approach as either nearly all countries can claim jurisdiction over users, subjecting users to criminal laws in countries with which they have no true interaction, or they limit jurisdiction, thereby risking abuse by bad actors. This article takes a comparative approach to examine the challenges to establishing criminal jurisdiction on cryptocurrency-related crimes.
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当罪犯滥用区块链:在分散的环境中建立个人管辖权
2022年8月,美国财政部批准了虚拟货币混合器Tornado Cash,这是一款运行在以太坊区块链上的开源和完全去中心化软件,随后导致其在荷兰的一名开发人员被捕。这不仅是外国资产控制办公室(OFAC)第一次将其权力扩展到对软件的外国“人”进行制裁,而且软件的分散性和全球使用突出了对分散化软件及其全球用户群建立管辖权的挑战。政府声称对公民、居民和通过该国领土的任何资产拥有管辖权。作为拥有大多数大型科技公司的全球金融中心,这往往有助于建立对通过美国服务器进行的全球行为的管辖权。然而,分布在世界各地节点的区块链上的去中心化程序挑战了这种传统方法,因为几乎所有国家都可以声称对用户具有管辖权,使用户在与他们没有真正互动的国家受到刑法的约束,或者它们限制管辖权,从而有可能被不良行为者滥用。本文采用比较方法来研究对加密货币相关犯罪建立刑事管辖权的挑战。
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来源期刊
Laws
Laws LAW-
CiteScore
2.00
自引率
16.70%
发文量
77
审稿时长
11 weeks
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