Blockchain Forensic Analytics

As blockchain technologies continue to evolve and emerge, DHS and numerous other Federal agencies have an increasing need to trace new cryptocurrencies and cryptotokens to support investigations and enforcement actions. Some new cryptocurrencies, such as Zcash and Monero, are designed to provide anonymity to users and thus pose challenges to enforcement agencies looking to track and curtail illicit activity. The proposed innovation will provide enforcement agencies with the ability to trace publicly listed transactions on Zcash and Monero. For obfuscated transactions, we will evaluate the feasibility of tracing them by developing and testing heuristics to de-anonymize wallet addresses and link them to cryptocurrency exchanges which can be subpoenaed by federal agencies. The solution will also propose a system architecture that is extensible and generalizable to be upgraded to trace new cryptocurrencies. The proposed innovation is important because there is significant activity in cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin that are not currently available to be investigated using existing blockchain tracing solutions. Also, there does not yet exist a tool that enables the investigation of cryptocurrencies designed to limit traceability like Zcash and Monero.