Blockchain forensic investigations
2026 · 28 pages
Aether Digital Counsel

Methods, confidence levels, and the legal use of on-chain findings in civil and regulatory matters.

PURPOSE

This paper describes how we conduct a blockchain investigation when the result has to be usable in court, in an insolvency, or in front of a supervisor. It is written for general counsel and for litigators who will inherit the file.
It is not a software manual, and it is not a promise that any particular theft can be reversed. Public ledgers make some facts easy and some facts permanently unknowable. The craft is telling those apart in writing.

SCOPE AND INSTRUCTIONS

Every matter starts with written instructions: the addresses in scope, the time window, the assets of interest, and the decision the client is trying to make. Open-ended “find the hacker” assignments produce long reports and weak next steps.
We also record what we will not do. We do not pretend to deanonymize a person from a heuristic alone. We do not contact suspects. We do not move assets.

METHOD

We work from primary chain data wherever a client’s vendor export can be checked. Flows are followed by value, including swaps and bridges. Change outputs are identified so they are not described as laundering.
Clustering is documented. A common-input heuristic is not the same as an exchange subpoena return. Each attribution in the report carries a basis: client record, counterparty admission, public disclosure, or inference. Inferences are never upgraded by repetition.

USING THE WORK

The work product is a chronology, a set of address schedules, and a short opinion on where legal process is likely to reach assets. Affidavits are drafted from that file, not from a slide.
Preservation and disclosure strategy sits in the same memo as the trace. An address list without a plan for the venue holding the assets is an academic exercise.

LIMITS

Mixers, privacy chains, and off-exchange settlement can end a trace. So can a typo in the client’s opening facts. We would rather close a lead than defend a chart we cannot explain on cross-examination.
Tooling changes. The standard — say what you did, say what you assumed, say what would falsify it — does not.

This paper is general information, not legal advice.