Overview

The 2013 Future of Money Award international design competition invited entrants to imagine & design a future financial crime which utilizes a loophole, a social convention, or specific technology.

An exploration of potential future financial crimes, BigShot is a conceptual website that exists on the TOR network and utilizes Bitcoin to enable a new crowdfunding platform in which criminal activities can be both proposed and funded in complete anonymity.

Although new technologies and systems are always being developed, it usually isn't until they are in the hands of every day people that society sees their true impact. In researching future financial technologies and criminal enterprises, we set out to explore the potential impact by ideating on possible criminal activities that could happen at scale.

Approach

BigShot is the result of synthesis of independent research from secondary sources such as futurist trend forecasts and financial trade publications; as well as white papers on emerging digital currencies and technologies.

After narrowing the scope from secondary research, we explored the "dark web" itself by using TOR to visit notable sites such as the Hidden Wiki and the Silk Road for first hand experience. Through this exploration, we realized the affordances of anonymity and inherent conundrums of cryptocurrency in the hands of everyday people, but also how these trends might converge in the near future to impact large corporations, special interest groups, and governments.

Our approach was thoroughly documented and can be minted on Mirror.

Outcomes

BigShot was selected as the Winner of the 2013 Future of Money Design Award international competition. A conceptual service imagined as an extrapolation of deviant globalization, where modern criminals adopt high technology to commit crime on scales never before possible, that asks “What if an anonymous, global platform existed for crowdfunding illegal activities?” BigShot is the answer, as explained in the short film below:

Credits

Client: Future of Money Award Role: Co-Creator Year: 2013