Cryptocurrency Forensics: On-Chain Investigations

Explore how cryptographic key pairs secure cryptocurrency wallets, with a private key controlling funds and a public key forming the wallet address, backed by seed phrases.

Explore hierarchical deterministic wallets and Bip32, Bip39, and Bip44, showing how a seed phrase yields a full key tree and new addresses for each transaction.

Learn how a blockchain transaction proceeds from signing with a private key to broadcasting across nodes, reaching consensus, and becoming a block through proof of work or proof of stake.

In Bitcoin's utxo model, each transaction uses inputs and multiple outputs, with change returned to a new address, enabling forensic traceability but challenging ownership patterns through obfuscation like coin mixing.

Explore Ethereum's account-based model with a global balance ledger, where smart contracts trigger on-chain operations and gas fees reveal forensic indicators via contract interactions and on-chain events.

Explore how private keys generate public keys and encode them into addresses, such as pay-to-public-key-hash, pay-to-script-hash, bc1 and taproot, with private key formats like raw hex, WIF, and mnemonic phrases.

Explore how coinjoins and pay join mix coins to obfuscate inputs and outputs, enabling privacy while challenging investigators to trace funds using transaction patterns and heuristics.

Analyze blockchain forks to uncover additional funds in a suspect's wallet after major splits. Trace fork history and use blockchain explorers to compare assets across forks, preventing missed evidence.

Explore no input transactions and the mining process that creates new bitcoins as block rewards. See how the 3.125 bitcoin reward plus fees go to the winning miner, labeled Coinbase.

Explore ethereum fundamentals, including ether, addresses, ERC20 tokens, smart contracts, decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, staking, and transaction tracing, with ENS and keystore concepts clarified.

Analyze internal Ethereum transactions as user interactions with smart contracts, illustrated by a Uniswap v3 swap transferring 30.75 wrapped ether and 9145 uni through the contract, highlighting decentralized exchanges.

Explore how non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain transfer ownership, with the media stored off-chain on IPFS and only the token, metadata, and smart contract update reflecting the new owner.

Explore how Tornado Cash uses zk-SNARKs to mix Ethereum funds, breaking sender and receiver links and enabling withdrawals to new addresses, with fixed-size pools and privacy implications.

Analyse how DeFi hackers exploit smart contract vulnerabilities and swapping to hide stolen funds, using the Vista contract hack on defi.io as a forensics case study.

Discover Monero's unlinkability and untraceability via ring signatures, decoys, one time addresses, and confidential transactions. Apply off chain strategies at exchange points to trace flows through traditional finance.

Explore zcash's two address types—transparent t addresses and shielded z addresses—and how optional privacy, zk-snarks, and ecosystem constraints affect real-world tracing and user experience.

Learn how blockchain forensics traces funds across public explorers, analyzes transaction hashes and addresses, and uses forensic software to expose patterns and potential money laundering.

Navigate etherscan's homepage search bar to trace wallet addresses, transaction hashes, and token contracts. Explore address overviews, ERC20 tokens, NFT transfers, analytics, beacon deposits, blocks, and contract reads.

Trace bitcoin transactions with graphical tracing tools using Meta Sleuth to map attacker movements, identify change addresses, and follow funds to the Gemini exchange.

Explore breadcrumbs to create investigative reports, trace Bitcoin and Ethereum trails with Smart Expand, identify services like Coinbase and Bitrefill, and set up monitoring alerts for suspicious addresses.

Apply artificial intelligence to cryptocurrency forensics with Flipside Crypto to monitor addresses, assess risk, and trace funds using on-chain data and AI-generated reports.

Commercial blockchain analysis tools enable large-scale investigations through wallet clustering, transaction tracing, and risk scoring. Chainalysis, Ciphertrace, and Elliptic provide exchange monitoring and sanctions monitoring for regulators and institutions.

Bitmart's 2021 hack exploited a stolen hot wallet private key, draining Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain funds and ERC20 and BEP20 tokens before laundering through Tornado Cash.

Trace an on-chain Uniswap swap by following the universal router, wrapped ether, and Usdc transfers through the pool, the net ether movement, and the fee collector.

Explore atomic swaps and hash time locked contracts that enable trustless cross-chain exchanges, using a shared hash to link contracts and reveal who funded and claimed funds.