Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Development & Technical Discussion => Topic started by: blockch4iner on February 28, 2018, 04:25:50 AM



Title: Bitcoin APIs to find out who (and how much) has been paying a given address?
Post by: blockch4iner on February 28, 2018, 04:25:50 AM
Are there any 3rd party APIs to find out who and how much has been paying a given address?

This data isn't anonymous in the blockchain so it would really be just a matter of building an inverted index of the payments and then keeping all the data available via an API.

I don't want to build it , was curious if anyone else has this service already? 


Title: Re: Bitcoin APIs to find out who (and how much) has been paying a given address?
Post by: Vardan Services on February 28, 2018, 05:24:13 AM
Hi-Please clarify more your requirement.


Title: Re: Bitcoin APIs to find out who (and how much) has been paying a given address?
Post by: RGBKey on February 28, 2018, 05:25:58 AM
There's a company called Chainalysis (https://www.chainalysis.com/) that provide services like this. They market to companies mostly, people that want to manage risk.


Title: Re: Bitcoin APIs to find out who (and how much) has been paying a given address?
Post by: pebwindkraft on February 28, 2018, 12:39:16 PM
Are there any 3rd party APIs to find out who and how much has been paying a given address?

This data isn't anonymous in the blockchain ...

I need to step in here, cause I fear another discussion on loosing my privacy  ;D

I look into it from the perspective of help organizations (ONGs). In FIAT world, they usually get funds by foreign countries to their bank accounts. And in the country of operation, they meet conflicting goals. Some governance have then frozen their banking accounts. And I can't stress is importantly enough: THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM OF SMALL THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES! IT HAPPENS ALSO IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE...
It is not the always repeated "tax avoiding" issue.

So, when you say "who", it's a question of defining what do you mean by "who"? Looking at block explorers (e.g. blockchain.info), they do exactly this, when it comes to bitcoin addresses and values. Even dates. So the "who" can be address x payed y bitcoins to address z at a specific date. This is anonymous data in the blockchain, and becomes pseudo anonymous, when it comes to real people. Chainanalysis has already been mentioned...

To avoid that people can link information between me as a person and a used bitcoin address, the concept of "single address usage" must be followed. Then all these analyzers don't make sense. They will work with probabilities, but still there's a lot to go... Personally it would be even better, to use mixers and different exchanges. When is mimble-wimble finally introduced into the bitcoin eco system?  :D


Title: Re: Bitcoin APIs to find out who (and how much) has been paying a given address?
Post by: bob123 on February 28, 2018, 01:25:44 PM
I don't want to build it , was curious if anyone else has this service already? 

There are quite a few companies who provide such a service.
For example:
  • Elliptic: Is probably the 'market leader' ??? in this segment (https://www.elliptic.co/ (https://www.elliptic.co/))
  • Chainalysis: https://www.chainalysis.com/ (https://www.chainalysis.com/)
  • Numsight: http://numisight.com/ (http://numisight.com/)

Elliptic and Chainalysis seem to be the most trustworthy/reliable.
But i think the most efficient way would be to build a small program to extract the data you are searching for by yourself.