Metamorphoses of the Shadow Digital Economy

Abstract

This research analyses the shadow digital economy (SDE) as an ecosystem for the development of cybercrime. The SDE is viewed not as a collection of isolated illegal incidents, but as a digital shadow market environment in which illicit products, services, infrastructure and coordination mechanisms are organized in a quasi-market form. The term ‘Metacrime’ is used to denote the supra-systemic level of such an environment, understood as the service-market-based and reproducible criminal core of the SDE. The following are systematically explored: a research gap in the literature; the conceptual and methodological foundations of the study; umbrella models and the multi-level architecture of Metacrime; rent-seeking mechanisms and investment-reinvestment cycles; as well as the transformation of the classical SDE in immersive and virtual active environments. Attention is also paid to the interpretation of Metacrime as crime in the Metaverse – a new segment of the SDE. CZU: 343.9:004.056; JEL: D47, D74, D82, E26, K24, O17