Analysis on Criminal Governance of Bitcoin-related Corruption Cases

Abstract

Bitcoin is extremely easy to be used in corruption cases due to its pseudonym, easy circulation, easy cross-border and other characteristics. As a decentralized electronic account book, the circulation of regulatory funds is jointly confirmed by each node in the bitcoin network, which can ensure the authenticity of the criminal evidence and is not easy to be lost or damaged. It provides great convenience for evidence collection in bitcoin corruption cases. However, there are also shackles in criminal governance, such as how to prove the subjective intent of the bribe takers, the impact of fluctuations in market value on the identification of the case and, most importantly, how to effectively recover stolen goods across borders. Therefore, the difficulty of bitcoin-related cases does not lie in the “anonymity” that some scholars believe, but lies in the determination of subjective intent, the determination of the amount of the crime and the international judicial assistance in recovering the stolen money.