Cybercriminals Have Built a Service to Check ‘Dirty’ Bitcoin

Researchers at the analytics firm Elliptic discovered on the dark web a service that allows users to check potential links between Bitcoin addresses and criminal activity.

The Antinalysis tool calculates the percentage probability that funds held in a wallet will be identified as proceeds of crime.

The service runs on the Tor anonymity network and charges $3 to scan a single address. Based on its results, users receive a breakdown of the source of the Bitcoin, as assessed by Antinalysis, with a risk-category label.

Profits from dark net markets, ransomware programs and theft are classified as “extreme risk”, funds obtained from regulated exchanges and recently mined coins are classified as “not risk-related”.

In the example below, 2.7% of the Bitcoin stored at the address originated from dark net markets.

Antinalysis analysis results showing the source of funds on the Bitcoin address. Data: Elliptic.

Antinalysis was created by one of the developers of Incognito Market, a dark net marketplace selling drugs. According to him, the service offers “very precise results,” which allegedly are confirmed by their comparison with results obtained using available commercial blockchain analytics tools.

However, according to Elliptic, Antinalysis poorly detects links to major dark net markets and other criminal structures.

“This is because precise blockchain analytics require substantial investment and lengthy data collection,” said Tom Robinson.

He did not rule out that in the future the service could improve and hinder the work of analytics firms and law enforcement in the fight against money laundering.

In June, Elliptic and the Spanish bank Santander completed trials of a solution to identify suspicious activity linked to customer cryptocurrency transactions.

Subscribe to ForkLog news on Facebook.