Rate My Professor Jonathan Karlsen

Karlsen specializes in digital finance research, investigating economic benefits from innovations and their facilitation of illicit activities such as darknet markets, ransomware attacks, and money laundering. His interests also extend to financial market integrity, market manipulation, and insider trading. Key publications include “Sex, drugs, and bitcoin: How much illegal activity is financed through cryptocurrencies?” (Review of Financial Studies, 2019, with S. Foley and T. J. Putniņš), “Digging deeper - Is bitcoin digital gold? A mining perspective” (Journal of Commodity Markets, 2024, with D. G. Baur, L. A. Smales, and A. Trench), and “Do crypto investors care about energy use and climate change? Evidence from Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake” (Journal of Environmental Management, 2024, with D. G. Baur). He contributes to projects like “Measuring global market integrity,” “Economic impact potential of real-world asset tokenization,” and “Quantifying ransomware attacks.” Karlsen has secured grants from the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand for research on cryptocurrency exchange monopolies and from UWA for decoding corporate engagements on Sustainable Development Goals.