There's No Such Thing as Crypto Crime

1A History of Cryptocurrencies and Crime

Driving the Harbor Freeway north out of Los Angeles toward Pasadena, you pass by the densely populated residential areas of South Park and Vermont Harbor before likely noticing the huge sporting complex that includes the LA Memorial Coliseum and the Bank of California Stadium on your left. As you pass under the Santa Monica Freeway and swing to the northeast, the vast LA Convention Center comes into view and behind it the famous home of the LA Lakers basketball team. This arena had for decades been known as the Staples Center, named after its sponsor, the vast multinational office supplies organization. However, a person driving past around Christmas 2021 would have noticed the familiar Staples signs were gone and had been replaced by a name written in blue and white. Crypto.com Arena.

For many, this would have been the first time they had seen or heard of the name of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Although just five years old when they took over sponsorship of the Lakers home, the Singapore-based company had tens of millions of customers around the world and represented just one of the many cryptocurrency exchanges dealing billions of dollars of virtual currencies every day.

A few months later, during the 2022 Super Bowl, arguably one of the most expensive sporting events in the world for a company to advertise their services, five cryptocurrency exchanges ran TV advertisements or social media campaigns to ...