Assassination market
An assassination market is a prediction market where any party can place a bet (using anonymous electronic money and pseudonymous remailers) on the date of death of a given individual. This incentivises assassination of the individual, as parties with advance knowledge of an assassination plot can profit by betting accurately on the date of the death. Because the payoff is for accurately picking the date rather than performing the assassination, it is substantially more difficult to assign criminal liability.<ref name="Harkin 2009">Template:Cite book</ref>
History
Early uses of the terms "assassination market" and "market for assassinations" can be found (in both positive and negative lights) in 1994's "The Cyphernomicon"<ref name="Cyphernomicon">Template:Cite web</ref> by Timothy C. May, a cypherpunk. The concept and its potential effects are also referred to as assassination politics, a term popularized by Jim Bell in his 1995–96 essay of the same name.<ref name="Bell 1997">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="McCullagh 2000">Template:Cite news</ref>
Early in part 1, Jim Bell describes the idea as:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Bell then goes on to further specify the protocol of the assassination market in more detail. In the final part of his essay, Bell posits a market that is largely non-anonymous. He contrasts this version with the one previously described. Carl Johnson's attempt to popularise the concept of assassination politics appeared to rely on the earlier version.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> There followed an attempt to popularise the second in 2001 that is ongoing today.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Technologies such as Tor and bitcoin have enabled online assassination markets, as described in parts one to nine of Assassination Politics.
Assassination Market website
The first prediction market entitled "Assassination Market" was created by a self-described crypto-anarchist in 2013.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Utilising Tor to hide the site's location and bitcoin-based bounties and prediction technology, the site lists bounties on former US President Barack Obama, economist Ben Bernanke and former justice minister of Sweden Beatrice Ask (all of whom are still alive as of November 2025).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2015, the site was suspected to be defunct, but the deposited bitcoins were cashed out in 2018.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
See also
- Popular culture
- The Assassination Bureau, Ltd, an unfinished novel by Jack London
- The Visit
- "Hated in the Nation", an episode of Black Mirror
- The Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild