Blog post: Cybercrime and Cryptocurrency Fraud

Throughout the second half of 2022 governments around the world became increasingly vocal in their attempts to address the ever-increasing cybercrime issue with proper regulatory mechanisms. However, the effectiveness of the course of action taken by many legislatures, such as those in Australia and Hong Kong, largely focused on hardening the penalties for cybercrimes, but failed to address the need for more effective enforcement mechanisms. Moreover, the course of action taken by the Council of Europe shows that due to the global nature of this issue, countries might need to consider a greater level of international cooperation not only within the regional boundaries, but also between separate regions.

Moreover, the outbreak of war in Ukraine and subsequent energy crisis showed that cybercrime might not only be committed by individual actors but might be part of larger state-sponsored terrorism schemes. This only affirms that countries need to pay a greater attention to the issue as it is essential to their national security.

With regards to cryptocurrency fraud, the most recent occurrences in the US affirmed the fact that the current regulation is insufficient and lacks proper enforcement mechanisms for it to do its job and prevent consumers from being victims to cryptocurrency fraud. In addition, it has been shown that the issue is deeply international in its nature. Consequently, the committee should look for better enforcement mechanisms that would prevent international cryptocurrency fraud.