Cryptofraud and the Private Ledger Problem

Abstract

The time is long past when con artists were content with hard assets. Today they induce their victims to part with cash, securities, and other sorts of property that are intangible and readily negotiable. To carry out their schemes, they create multiple shell corporations and hide assets inside of them. Transactions involving intangible property move at the speed of light and are infinitely manipulable. Sorting out property rights in the ordinary fashion—such as tracing the path a piece of property took in going from one person to an-other—is hard. In the world of cryptocurrency, it is some-times not even possible. Traditional markers of ownership are often altogether absent. This world provides an ideal place to test conventional accounts of property and explore first principles.