Risk-taking ‍‍Criminal Policy towards Virtual Currencies Technology

Public policy on social phenomena has attracted the particular attention of the countries in recent decades. One of the most difficult areas for policymaking is modern or emerging virtualization/cyber-security technology area. Due to the dynamic nature of cyberspace, regulation on this area as well as its impact on the general economy, political and security sensitivities of this space also technical difficulties requires to be more seriously addressed. Unfortunately Due to the criminal capacity of cyberspace, it has become a priority for some criminal policy systems. Accordingly, criminal policymakers as a part of the governing systems are perusing legislative criminal polices towards the regulation of various aspects of crimes, including technological crimes. This dimension of criminal policies plays a strategic role in determining macro preventive as well as countermeasures against criminal phenomenon since it means planning, modeling and creating an effective action plan on the criminal justice system's perpetrators such as new technological issues which needs "virtual currency" policymaking that it has a lot of criminal capacities due to its unique features. With respect to its nature and function, there are various virtual currency types which each of them has certain characteristics. For instance, Bitcoin as an example of virtual currency which some of its features differentiate from another. Therefore, in the present study, some of the leading countries' policy approaches on virtual currencies particularly, "Bitcoin" have been investigated through using descriptive-analytical research method. Then an appropriate approach to criminal policy in the context of the risk-based approach to criminal policy was explained. Furthermore, all efforts have been made to provide solutions to improve the current situation through criticizing the Iranian criminal policy.