Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

I am researching ways how to trace transactions and hot and cold wallets of exchanges, gambling sites, cantors, mixer.s What sources of data could I use? What algorithms and scripts would be useful to do this? Maybe, do you have some interesting articles about this issue? Any help would be great :)

There are some research about blockchain analysis, try to search it on https://arxiv.org/ (https://arxiv.org/) and http://vixra.org/ (http://vixra.org/). All research certainly share their algorithm/math formula (which can be used to create script) and sources of the data (doesn't mean they always share it). But not all of them are peer reviewed.

If you haven't download whole Bitcoin blockchain, you should do it now.


Breaking Mixing Services (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5117328.msg50036053#msg50036053), but it's specific about mixer.

You can also have a look at Bitcoin Rich List > https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html
When you scroll down you will see which cold wallet address belongs to which exchange: Huobi, Bitfinex, Binance, etc.

https://www.walletexplorer.com/ also keeps track of known addresses for exchanges, pools, gambling services etc. Try it out.

Apart from the research/documentation ETFbitcoin has already posted, there are a couple sites which let you track outputs from certain exchanges and other sites. If you just want to track/ try to identify a couple adresses, you could perhaps try these sites..

See, https://www.walletexplorer.com/, and for things such as coinbase/binance,  i’ve used https://matbea.net/ in the past.

(Matbea seems a bit clunky, but it actually is pretty decent and i think it might even be better than walletexplorer.)

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It’s been a while since i’ve actually looked into this, so i’m also kind of curious if there are any better (free) apis or just sites/explorers to identify transactions coming from certain sites than the ones i already mentioned.

You should ask these guys:

https://www.chainalysis.com

It's what many exchanges are using. Apparently they are busting $millions worth of BTC coming from "criminal activity". Binance is the latest exchange to be using this.

Using BTC on exchanges is getting increasingly risky. Forget about this criminal bullshit, for us regular users, it's still a risk to put your money into what is basically a lottery of your coins having or not "criminal activity" linked to them. BTC needs to get the fungible part improved if you want to deal with fiat frontends.

That's an interesting dilemma. Ultimately, I think it's unlikely.

Taproot can make all different types of transactions look identical, including simple payments. Assuming enough of the network updates to incorporate Taproot, there will never be much certainty of proximity to CoinJoin or centralized mixer transactions.

Help me dissect these explanations from Pieter Wuille:



I know it doesn't apply to every case, but I was under the impression that obfuscating transaction type was the primary privacy gain in the Taproot proposal.

Along with some links that are posted above by some other members there are also two more explorers mostly used to search and track bitcoin transaction:
They work good in combination with walletexplorer.com

https://oxt.me/
https://www.kycp.org/

You can also subscribe and track change for any btc address (better don't use your own)
https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/subscribe/

I don't think that explanation contradicts Pieter Wuille, or me. Nobody is saying that every transaction on the blockchain will look identical.

What, specifically, do you disagree with in these statements?

Something I saw the other day was this --> https://samouraiwallet.com/stonewall - " Break the assumptions of blockchain analysis with mathematically provable doubt between sender and recipient of your transactions. "

I do not know how relevant it will be to your research, but it seems as though some companies are already looking for ways to bypass traditional mixer services, because some of them might already be compromised.

There are also some conspiracy theories doing the rounds that some of these mixer services are being run by law enforcement agencies to track criminal activities. << honeypot >> (Similar to the N$A running Tor exit nodes to collect data on people using the DarkNet)  ???

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4x3qnj/how-the-nsa-or-anyone-else-can-crack-tors-anonymity <old article to show that it was done in the past>

That doesn't conflict with the above statement. These functionally say the same thing:

Why do you disagree with the first statement, but not the second?

Different types of Taproot transactions can look identical on the blockchain. That doesn't mean every transaction will look identical -- this already accounts for your "multiple possibility of Bitcoin script/contract" condition.

Are you saying that Taproot does nothing to obfuscate transaction type?

I think learnmeabitcoin's Bitcoin Path tool (https://learnmeabitcoin.com/tools/path/) is one of the best examples of what you are looking for. Just like Blockchain.com it can show you all the transaction the address has made and can show connections (if there is any) to another address. And unlike Blockchain.com you are assured that they aren't tracking you as they don't have any cookies and IP logs. As far as scripts are concerned they also have provided a guide (https://learnmeabitcoin.com/guide/) for the said tool. If you want something that is lightweight and shows additional data compared to other block explorer I think their Bitcoin Path tool is worth checking out.

Thank you for responses  ;) How do different services look for exchange wallets? What do you think about other blockchains, is it possible to trace them?

The underlying technique is to consider addresses which were used together in a single transaction belong to a single wallet.
If you know some addresses from that exchange, like their own dummy accounts with used deposit addresses, they can tell which addresses belong to that exchange using that technique.
For the exchange's Hot/Cold storage wallet that aren't linked, it can be pinpointed by checking where the funds from the deposit addresses are being consolidated.

Everything is easy except if "ConJoin" was involved or the fund was mixed somewhere in the consolidation process.

With Monero or other privacy coins, it's almost impossible to track.

Perhaps contact the creator of www.walletexplorer.com? He is a Chainalysis employee so I'm sure he can point you in the right direction.