Cybercrime Is Not Always Rational, but It Is Reasonable

Abstract

This chapter sets out the different business models present in the cryptomarkets and the basis on which participants are driven towards selecting one over another. The market confers advantages on big players, thus there is a tendency towards market concentration. Some vendors, however, deliberately limit the size of their business. Vendors take on bigger risks when expanding their business. Employing more people, having to deal with larger throughputs and engaging in greater blockchain exposure are all factors pushing people to limit their business size. Therefore the market logic and the business logic tend to work against each other in many instances. The way in which business and market logics work out point to ways in which crime is structured without being organised. Organised crime implies the existence of a well-organised command system that coordinates different actors. Such mafia-like organisation is relatively rare and tends—even in those cases—to consist of coalitions of convenience rather than power. Digital crime, however, does confer a greater ability to coordinate remote actors and resources and increases the power that small groups or individuals have. Different modes of criminal action are created. A botnet—an array of compromised computing devices – can be rented to launch an attack on public infrastructure, potentially creating significant havoc for a small outlay of time and resources. Markets also provide a way in which illicit labour and capital can be coordinated more effectively and help resolve some challenges involved in the economics of criminal activity such as coordination and price setting.