Bitcoin Forum

Tracking Ether transactions is easy....but I have no idea how to track Bitcoin transactions, I'm curious where these 99.99 BTC end up.

Full Disclosure: These were seized by the US Secret Service which is where the curiosity comes from.

Edit: Forgot to add the address lol

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/3DykGaJ7SGtbE7jqqntB4WBKJf9pcZZbd2

The owner used a mixing service and spread those 99 bitcoins among hundreds of addresses, and from those addresses he sent to more hundreds of addresses and so on. It is very hard to track them... Probably the original owner even received bitcoin which are not related to those addresses.

There are many mixing services around.

Tracking bitcoin transactions is most of the times easy as well, but this user tried to hide his bitcoins.

Aw okay. No wonder I was so confused. So does it look like the secret service actually got the coins or no? Or is it just too hard to track manually because of the mixing service?

It is possible to track, but it is difficult.
It depends on this secret service capabilities.

There is no way to be fully anonymous in bitcoin network, but you can be pseudo anonymous doing as this user did. he tried to hide, but it is not 100%'.

I got this image to illustrate the process:

https://medium.com/@btcblend/advantages-of-bitcoin-mixing-services-633e4fc07485
https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*XqljVkF4LbKfcZa5.png

You're not sure if the goons seized them or not? Before or after the mixing efforts?
Can you link the news or infos please?

The wallet address you provided above belong to an exchange site which is what make it hard to track the wallet activities but the wallet user does swap/send out the BTC the sameday the transaction arrived and i dont know if he later make use of tumbler but I'm totally sure that wallet 3DykGaJ7SGtbE7jqqntB4WBKJf9pcZZbd2 belong to an exchange site.

I did a short websearch and the result suggests that you're right.

First, 3DykGaJ7SGtbE7jqqntB4WBKJf9pcZZbd2 belongs to wallet "00000014ea8b260f (https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/00000014ea8b260f/addresses)" according to walletexplorer;
Then, the second listed address was tagged by whalealert as "Coinbase Exchange": whale-alert (https://whale-alert.io/transaction/bitcoin/a3e51ace4b7d352cdf52a140e835c9b98ab0c192724da8408011008a937d4f6a/1).

If this was true, then it will be very hard to track since Coinbase have the control over it.
Eg. They can use other UTXO to send the funds to USSS; or spend the funds from the address in question for user withdrawals.

https://www.forfeiture.gov/pdf/USSS/OfficialNotification.pdf

There's 100 BTC seized from one guy there. I searched 39.99988179 on Google and found 1 transaction around the same date so I assume they are the same.

Not only is it possible but it has already happened, most mixing services can be tracked. read this Breaking Mixing Services (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5117328.0)
The only exception is Chipmixer, but you need to trust them, and it is probably best not to trust absolutely any service.
The rest of the mixing methods are either expensive or it is easier to know that the mixing was done through them and therefore it is better to avoid them.

So the SS wallet of seized funds is at Coinbase?

If that's the case it will be difficult to know if it was the same bitcoin seized for forfeiture if the time the BTC are moved is unknown and if you the whalesalert you will know I'm right
Out of curiosity, why trying to track the BTC seized by the USSS?


That's reasonable since the exchange in the subject is the largest US based crypto exchange site.

There's a way to confirm that if you have an active Coinbase deposit address that received a couple of Bitcoins.

Simply paste it on walletexplorer and if your deposit address belongs to wallet [00000014ea] (walletexplorer link (https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/00000014ea8b260f/addresses)) where the address in OP belongs;
then you can safely assume that it's at Coinbase (if OP's claim is real).

How did you find the [00000014ea]? And how did you know that it belongs to coinbase even though I understand that it just an assumption.

So let's say, I want to know if the address belong to any exchange. I will just paste the bitcoin address in the wallet explorer?

I think he just simply copy the blockchain address posted by OP. Once you search it on the walletexplorer it usually display the
Master wallet for those using addresses under this wallet.


On this case, the address belong to that particular wallet that consist of 18million addresses. Possibly can assume this is an exchange.

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I think you can match up the address on some transaction made by coinbase on the list of addresses as well. Not sure how he knows but manually checking it could verify it.

Read my previous reply above (#7); 00000014ea8b260f is wallet 00000014ea.
Also read the previous replies and make it a habit before posting  ;)

Hmm, most of the time, no; most exchange doesn't have a tag in walletexplorer. You'll likely get a wallet ID number like that.

I've suggested to paste an "active Coinbase deposit address" (if you have/know one) for an obvious reason:
It's just to confirm if a Coinbase deposit address belongs to wallet00000014ea that will confirm that wallet00000014ea is Coinbase.