Cryptocurrency and financial crimes: A bibliometric analysis and future research agenda

The use of cryptocurrency for financial crimes has increased in recent years because of its decentralized and anonymous nature. This study extracted scholarly articles from the Scopus database and adopted bibliographic and content analysis to review financial fraud research in cryptocurrency. In addition, this study discussed the top ten cryptocurrency scams, potential reasons for falling into those traps, and associated theories to explore scammers’ behavior and outlined comprehensive future research guidelines for a safer financial world. Since 2018, the publication trend of revealing cryptocurrency frauds has gained momentum, and research on this topic has increased significantly in the last two years. The USA is the most significant contributor to cryptocurrency scam research. We found that both developed and developing countries are fairly concerned about combatting crypto fraudsters even though there are no regulated guidelines across the countries. The research potential has shifted from malware, bitcoin, and blockchain to fintech-based crimes such as money laundering, pump-and-dump schemes, and phishing. We observed that ICO fraud, money laundering, Ponzi schemes, phishing, darknet market transactions, ransomware, and pumps and dumps are some of the predominant crimes in crypto and that investor overconfidence, speculative expectations, low barriers to entry, decentralization, and anonymity are the primary reasons for crimes in cryptocurrency. This study suggests studying the socioeconomic impacts of cryptocurrencies, the necessity for standardized global regulation, and the integration of interdisciplinary research. Future research should emphasize exploring the innovation cycle in cryptocurrency assets, understanding cybercrime dynamics, guarding against crypto market manipulation, and developing automated scam prevention.