Practical Cyber Forensics: An Incident-Based Approach to Forensic Investigations

© Niranjan Reddy 2019

Niranjan ReddyPractical Cyber Forensicshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4460-9_13

13. Bitcoin Forensics

Niranjan Reddy¹ 

(1)

Pune, Maharashtra, India

 

Virtual Currency is a form of digital currency that only exits in an electronic form and not in any physical form. Unlike traditional money or fiat currency, virtual currency does not rely on a banking authority.

Virtual currencies were originally meant for online games and entertainment. These are mostly centralized, and its control is in the hands of the developer.

In 1998, Wei Dei, a computer engineer developed ‘B –money’ – a concept on a decentralized payment system. Taking that idea forward was Nick Sabzo who suggested employing cryptography to facilitate the generation of ...