A joint study between Austria and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research will look at the use of virtual currencies and how supposed illicit transactions and alleged criminals can be prevented, detected, tracked and prosecuted. The program, which has funding totalling €1.5m and will run through to the end of 2016, will also look at the need for supervision and regulation in the cryptocurrency space.

Project partners include:

Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Empolis, Kaisers-

University of Marburg

AITAustrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Vienna (Austria)

Vicesse Vienna Centre for Societal Security, Vienna (Austria)

M2D Mastermind Development GmbH, Vienna (Austria)

SBA Research gGmbH, Vienna (Austria)

Xylem Science and Technology Management GmbH, Vienna (Austria)

Associate partners include:

Federal Ministry of Finance and Federal Ministry of the Interior (both Vienna, Austria)

Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Wiesbaden

Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), Bonn

Federal Bureau of Economics and Export Control (BAFA), Eschborn

Bavarian State Criminal Police Office, Munich

Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM), Berlin

Commerzbank Bank AG, Frankfurt aM

Bitcoin Germany AG, Herford

Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg

Bitcoin Germany AG, an associate partner in the study, is a German bitcoin exchange which in 2013 entered into a partnership with Fidor Bank AG.

Although the research project began back in November of 2014, publication of a document outlining the study first appeared on the Federal Ministry of Education and Research's website some time during the past week. Despite that delay, Austrian research centre SBA Research outlined what was at the time still a proposal for the project back in mid 2014. It describes the project as such: