Hi everyone,

I've been exploring an idea for tracing transactions through instant exchange platforms, and I'm hoping to get your feedback on its feasibility and potential challenges.

Context:

Instant exchange platforms like FixedFloat and ChangeNOW are often used by hackers and criminals to obscure the trail of their transactions. Unlike mixing services such as Tornado Cash, these platforms perform the swap internally. This means that the originating and destination addresses do not appear on the blockchain, making it difficult to trace the flow of funds.

The Idea:

What if we developed a tool that sends the minimum required amount of cryptocurrency through each available chain on these platforms? By doing this, we could build a record of the contract addresses used for these swaps. Although these addresses might change regularly, the tool could regularly run and log any changes.

Additionally, by using timing analysis, it might be possible to match transactions, especially if the amounts are rounded or specific to certain blockchains (e.g., a specific amount of TRX received on Tron that equals 1 ETH). Unlike Tornado Cash, there's no possibility of delaying transactions with these platforms, which could make timing analysis more effective.

Questions:

What are the potential flaws or challenges in this approach? It might be a little expensive, but well within the ability of most successful digital forensics firms.

Why haven't commercial tracing platforms, such as Chainalysis, implemented a similar method to trace funds after they pass through these instant exchange platforms?

I appreciate any insights or feedback you can provide on this topic.

Thanks!