BTC Wallet Tracing

[tryingluck77]

is it possible to trace from BTC wallet address that who is the owner of it or its name or in anyway some clue to be near to it like from which exchange or to which exchange or software BTC wallet belongs from

[Upgrade00]

Bitcoin addresses are psedo anonymous; this means that even if addresses are public and transparent a real life identity cannot be linked to it as no such information is available on the network.
It's not possible to;
• Identify the personal information of a wallet holder through the network

It is possible to;
• View the balance and transaction history of an address
• Establish a link between several addresses based on their transaction history (mixers and change address can be used to improve privacy)
• Identity exchange addresses, but the information of the owner of the account cannot be gotten except the exchange is hacked (or requested by a government agency)

[tryingluck77]

Bitcoin addresses are psedo anonymous; this means that even if addresses are public and transparent a real life identity cannot be linked to it as no such information is available on the network.
It's not possible to;
• Identify the personal information of a wallet holder through the network

It is possible to;
• View the balance and transaction history of an address
• Establish a link between several addresses based on their transaction history
• Identity exchange addresses, but the information of the owner of the account cannot be gotten except the exchange is hacked (or requested by a government agency)

How is the process of getting the info that from which exchange this address is associated to ?

[BASE16]

You would have to hack the exchange.
Or you would have to get the Government involved so that they will confiscate the user database and conveniently hand it over to you 
I personally don't think the second one is an option, so happy hacking 

However, sometimes you can identify addresses by their exchange if they use a prefix.
For example like this:

Code:

"3BMEXqGpG4FxBA1KWhRFufXfSTRgzfDBhJ",
"3BMEXKjhrEtLUaBHMbowXuFfyRzo832dU9",
"3BMEXxSMT2b2kvsnC4Q35d2kKJZ4u9bSLh",
"3BMEXqkYPg7Kf3CTTpedfZZsGjrGCJ38T2",
"3BMEXMEvNLdpvoJLCHrCSJ8eiV4GRv76Tu",
"3BMEXaw5X8EScdxZZJNLaM9ZHXAzfwZhDp",
"3BMEXBcaWfTHsA5f53vM2CRBi33G57C6PR",

These are exchange addresses but it's not going to help you any further.
 

[tryingluck77]

You would have to hack the exchange.
Or you would have to get the Government involved so that they will confiscate the user database and conveniently hand it over to you 
I personally don't think the second one is an option, so happy hacking 

However, sometimes you can identify addresses by their exchange if they use a prefix.
For example like this:

Code:

"3BMEXqGpG4FxBA1KWhRFufXfSTRgzfDBhJ",
"3BMEXKjhrEtLUaBHMbowXuFfyRzo832dU9",
"3BMEXxSMT2b2kvsnC4Q35d2kKJZ4u9bSLh",
"3BMEXqkYPg7Kf3CTTpedfZZsGjrGCJ38T2",
"3BMEXMEvNLdpvoJLCHrCSJ8eiV4GRv76Tu",
"3BMEXaw5X8EScdxZZJNLaM9ZHXAzfwZhDp",
"3BMEXBcaWfTHsA5f53vM2CRBi33G57C6PR",

These are exchange addresses but it's not going to help you any further.
 

so IF I identify that from which exchange I had bought this BTC and they are still in that wallet address, I can connect them with my only email which I been using since years to request them to allow me access the wallet.

[Upgrade00]

How is the process of getting the info that from which exchange this address is associated to ?

Exchanges usually have hot wallets and cold storage; they use hot wallets to maintain liquidity on their platform, cold storage are for safe guarding of funds and such addresses are not connected to the internet, so they do not make frequent transactions.
By tracing the transactions to and from an exchange's hot wallet, the address of an account holder on that platform can be identified. You can however not get any detail besides this.

[tryingluck77]

How is the process of getting the info that from which exchange this address is associated to ?

Exchanges usually have hot wallets and cold storage; they use hot wallets to maintain liquidity on their platform, cold storage are for safe guarding of funds and such addresses are not connected to the internet, so they do not make frequent transactions.
By tracing the transactions to and from an exchange's hot wallet, the address of a account holder on that platform can be identified.

so If I DM you with the BTC address can you help out in looking from which exchange it comes from ?

[Upgrade00]

so If I DM you with the BTC address can you help out in looking from which exchange it comes from ?

Why would you need this information? I'm struggling off the top of my head to justify wanting to identify the exchange an address belongs to, especially as such address is definitely not yours.

[BASE16]

If you bought crypto and you don't have access to it and you don't know where you bought it then it's best to stay far far away from crypto to prevent further fatal mistakes from happening.

If you do find out where you bought it, then you should contact them and send them a wallet address so that they can send you your coins.
I have seen exchanges that deliberately did not transfer the coins and only acted when the customer noticed it and started to demand their coins.
Be careful because mistakes can usually not be made undone.

[tryingluck77]

I am helping a friend who bought btc earlier in 2010 and now he only have this btc address and do not remember from where he bought it

[BASE16]

I am helping a friend who bought btc earlier in 2010 and now he only have this btc address and do not remember from where he bought it

If the coins are on the address then what is the issue exactly ?

[tryingluck77]

Don't have access to the wallet or account

[BASE16]

Your key's your coins, not your key's not your coins.

[Upgrade00]

Don't have access to the wallet or account

So, your friend does not know the exchange on which they bought bitcoins, and they have not visited it since 2010?
You can post the address publicly and the community would look into it and try and decipher the exchange
P.S; if he doesn't remember the exchange, he/she would likely not know the email address that was used to register it nor the password of the account, proving ownership of the account would be a struggle.

[logfiles]

I also need help with this

I had this bitcoin wallet address 1DBU8EeoJcTNkfjz6hTTjR1RAH3DEzh9YS

But cannot remember the exchange or email i used when i signed up

Can anyone help please

Nobody can help you in anyway.
If you don't have access to the address' private key or recovery/back up phrase or do not remember your exchange's login details then forget about the bitcoins.

Just wondering who forgets the account details where they kept the money?

[HCP]

I am helping a friend who bought btc earlier in 2010 and now he only have this btc address and do not remember from where he bought it

Don't have access to the wallet or account

If he bought coins, and then moved them to a different address (ie. moved them off the exchange)... then the exchange is not going to be able to assist. The fulfilled their part of the deal when the coins where sent.

If they didn't move the coins from the exchange, then they might be able to recover access to the account... providing that the exchange is still functioning and they have access to the same email address used to register.

You could try: https://www.walletexplorer.com/ and see if the address is linked to any of the known exchanges... it's a long shot tho.

I had this bitcoin wallet address 1DBU8EeoJcTNkfjz6hTTjR1RAH3DEzh9YS

But cannot remember the exchange or email i used when i signed up

I'm not sure that is an exchange address...  If you look at the list of transactions here: https://www.walletexplorer.com/address/1DBU8EeoJcTNkfjz6hTTjR1RAH3DEzh9YS

You'll find they all end up sending change back to the same address, like this example: https://www.walletexplorer.com/txid/75dffb286896b9a1b86eb49864a22fb32787ddc5ef2e0ddea43f41f42248793d

That is not generally how exchanges work. So, it seems that this was a "single key" wallet... possibly something like an "imported" Electrum wallet, or perhaps MultiBit?

[erikoy]

I just thought of the old wallet like the wallet.dat file use to store bitcoin private key and the other details that a wallet has. Because bitcoin could be easily acquired before through mining or even faucet others had not thought just leaving the wallet with bitcoins they store with it. As time pass by, rhe owner of the wallet usually forgot the password and must thinking on how to take the bitcoins or sell it. It will be so hard to access fund without the wallet password. So, it is like that you own the private key, you own the public key address but you do not own the bitcoin unless you remember the password of the wallet.

Your key's your coins, not your key's not your coins.

This phrase may not going to apply I think because you have the private and public key but you can't take bitcoin or like bitcoin does not being own.

Anyway, I was just trying to participate in the discussion and learn from it. I can learn a lot from here in this section.

[bob123]

You would have to hack the exchange.

Not really.
Most (if not all) exchanges do consolidate the deposits on a hot- or cold wallet.
And most often those addresses are known (or at least can be found out by depositing multiple times to an exchange).

Tracing and/or linking a depositing transaction to an exchange isn't that hard in most cases.

[junnar1968]

Bitcoin addresses are psuedononymous. The addresses created by the wallet can all be traced back to that wallet. All the transactional details are there.

But there's no information on who exactly used the wallet unless they purposefully linked their identity to the address used a vanity address or digital signature, or used a 3rd party address like Coinbase or an app like cash app which ties to their identity. So the answer is No.

[DougM]

I also need help with this

I had this bitcoin wallet address 1DBU8EeoJcTNkfjz6hTTjR1RAH3DEzh9YS

But cannot remember the exchange or email i used when i signed up

Can anyone help please

Nobody can help you in anyway.
If you don't have access to the address' private key or recovery/back up phrase or do not remember your exchange's login details then forget about the bitcoins.

Just wondering who forgets the account details where they kept the money?

  The good news is that 1DBU8EeoJcTNkfjz6hTTjR1RAH3DEzh9YS only has 0.01103010 BTC left (~$112 USD) after some transactions back in 2015.