Emerging Markets for Illicit Substances in Scandinavia. A Mixed Method Study

• In Event: Researching Illicit Markets: Online, Offline and In-Between

Abstract

Despite the transnational design of cryptomarkets both buyers and vendors find themselves in local contexts of policing and risk. We asks how Scandinavian sellers on the cryptomarkets show similarities to European seller profiles. Further, how can we understand the particularities of the declining trend in selling from the Denmark and Norway. Data is collected by the DATACRYPTO project through webcrawling. We further utilize a mixed-methods perspective and integrate (n)ethnographic observations from cryptomarket forums. We find that Scandinavia is a minor player in the global and European cryptomarket economy, but differs on a number of key points: Scandinavian demand differ both among countries and in comparison to the international demand, and Scandinavian countries exhibit high levels of domestic distribution. Most strikingly, at point in which the cryptomarket economy grew at a rapid pace the Scandinavian market began a decline. This coincides with the establishment of domestically oriented Scandinavian markets in Sweden and Finland. Our findings suggest that cryptomarkets in Finland, Sweden and Norway function as alternate domestic distribution channels for illicit substances. Informed by our ethnographic observations we suggest this is in part due to policing and risk, but also convenience and availability as well as an established internet community.

Authors

• Jakob Demant, University of Copenhagen

• Rasmus Munksgaard, University of Copenhagen

• Silje Bakken, University of Oslo