bitcoinexchangeguide.com
Leaked documents on the dark web show that Chainalysis is advertising using an affiliated wallet explorer to gather IP information to aid in police investigations. Chainalysis is a blockchain data platform that provides data to crypto businesses, financial institutions, and government agencies. First reported by CoinDesk, the documents were allegedly from a presentation of Italian law enforcement show that the company used WalletExplorer.com to collect the information on crypto users who used the site.
“Using this dataset, we were able to provide law enforcement with meaningful leads related to IP data associated with a relevant cryptocurrency address. It is also possible to conduct a reverse lookup on any known IP address to identify other BTC addresses. It can also collect data from a data form address that has yet to transit the Blockchain — that is, the BTC address provided as part of a kidnapping or life-threatening investigation — if the suspect checks their address.”
According to the document, Chainalysis also gathers Bitcoin user data that includes the user's IP address, the full set of addresses in the wallet (used and unused), and the version of the wallet software by running nodes that verify transactions. [coin_stats_table symbol="BTC"] Chainalysis apparently also traced 65% of transactions involving privacy-focused Monero (XMR), at least that's what the document says. [coin_stats_table symbol="XMR"] The leaked material identifies the presentation as part of an investigation into Berlusconi Market, a darknet market that Italian authorities took down in 2019. The site developed by Aleš Janda shows the connection between him and Chainalysis as the bottom of the WalletExplorer.com advertises the company's service with the following text:
“Want to trace bitcoins with even better tool? Check Chainalysis.com . It has even better detection of wallets, more wallet names, address metadata, graphic visualization of links between wallets and so on. Author of WalletExplorer.com now works there as analyst and programmer.”
The same day this report came out, the US Treasury also announced sanctions against a Russian crypto exchange and blacklisted wallet addresses that Chainalysis had helped identify.