Cryptomarkets (Emerald Studies In Digital Crime, Technology and Social Harms) by James Martin & Jack Cunliffe & Rasmus Munksgaard

Cryptomarkets (Emerald Studies In Digital Crime, Technology and Social Harms) by James Martin & Jack Cunliffe & Rasmus Munksgaard

Author:James Martin & Jack Cunliffe & Rasmus Munksgaard
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781838670320
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Published: 2019-10-24T23:00:00+00:00


Fig. 3.2. Number of Publications and Cumulative Number of Citations from Web of Science/Scopus, 2013 to 2018 (as at 25 March 2019).

3.3.1. Qualitative Approaches

As is often the case in an arena where there is little pre-existing knowledge, qualitative approaches can provide an insight into what is occurring and help develop knowledge. Van Hout and Bingham’s (2013a) first foray into this domain was a single case study of a Silk Road user’s ‘motives for online drug purchasing, experiences of accessing and using the website, drug information sourcing, decision making and purchasing, outcomes and settings for use, and perspectives around security’ (Van Hout & Bingham, 2013a, p. 385) with the user initially recruited through an extended conversation on the Silk Road chat forum. Their second piece, submitted eight months after their initial work, followed a similar methodology, although this time made use of the chat forum observation data directly and combined this with 20 anonymous online interviews. The final part of this three-phase project again took a similar approach and used the rapport in the discussion forums garnered by Bingham to interview, via encrypted chat channels, 10 vendors over a six-month period. These three exploratory pieces investigated motives for, and processes of, use of cryptomarkets, the market dynamics of the early Silk Road and the fears that the community felt about the possible longevity of the ecosystem at the time.

Similar interview style investigations have been carried out by a range of different investigators, with both buyers and vendors. Barratt, Lenton, et al. (2016) interviewed 17 Silk Road drug purchasers about their experiences of cryptomarkets between 2012 and 2014 from a harm reduction perspective, finding a complex picture with some users experienced an increase in usage upon first discovering cryptomarkets, but over a longer term reduced hoarding and a feeling they were able to manage their drug use with less worry about supply. Maddox et al. (2016) drew on the same set of interviews, and discussed how technological developments and solutions within the cryptomarket scene could be used to build a more permissive digital reality for those stigmatised through their illicit drug use, which they refer to as constructive activism.

Alongside the direct qualitative interviewing of various types of people who are involved with the cryptomarket drug trade, the related forums and discussion threads where people share information have also been used and analysed qualitatively. For instance, Ladegaard (2017a) investigation of social cohesion on cryptomarkets drew on discussion data on both Silk Road and Silk Road 2 forums in the six months after the seizure of Silk Road, and analysed how the community had responded to the disruption with solidarity and reinforcement of their moral positionality to move to other websites; Morselli et al. (2017) revisit questions of conflict that Tzanetakis et al. (2016) first touched on and examine social controls and conflict management via inspection of the terms and conditions of the 10 most popular markets alongside analysis of 200 discussion threads between buyer, vendor and market administrator on the ‘official forum of one of the largest cryptomarkets at the time of writing’ (Morselli et al.



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