Blog and insights
Research and guidance on blockchain investigation, cryptocurrency fraud, and asset tracing, written for clients and counsel, not search engines.
What to Do in the First 24 Hours After a Crypto Theft
The steps that matter most in the hours right after you notice something is wrong.
How Blockchain Investigators Actually Trace Stolen Funds
A plain language explanation of what happens after you hand over your case.
Common Investment Scam Patterns We See Repeatedly
The same handful of structures reappear again and again, here is what to watch for.
Why You Should Never Pay an Upfront Recovery Fee
A second scam frequently follows the first, here is how to recognize it.
Inside a Cross Border Asset Tracing Investigation
What changes when the trail crosses national borders, drawn from a real investigative pattern.
The State of Crypto Fraud in 2026, What Is Changing
Patterns we are seeing shift, in plain terms, without the hype.
Inside a Ransomware Payment Investigation
What can still be learned after a ransom has already been paid.
Reviewing and Revoking Token Approvals, A Practical Guide
A five minute habit that closes one of the most common attack paths in decentralized finance.
Recognizing a Fraudulent Contract Before You Deposit
A few patterns show up again and again in the contracts behind decentralized finance losses.
Moving Assets Between Networks, Explained Simply
What a network bridge actually does, without the jargon.
What Evidence to Preserve When a Business Wallet Is Compromised
A short checklist for the first hours after a company treasury incident.
Why Exchange Cooperation Has Improved in Recent Years
A quiet but meaningful shift in how regulated exchanges respond to legal requests.
How Seed Phrase Theft Happens and How to Prevent It
Seed phrase compromise remains the single most common way self custody wallets are emptied. Here is how it actually happens and what meaningfully reduces the risk.
Private Key Theft, Warning Signs and What to Do Next
A stolen private key compromises a single address rather than an entire wallet tree, but it moves just as fast. Here are the signs and the correct response.
How Wallet Draining Attacks Work
Wallet drainers are packaged crime kits, not lone hackers, and they have moved hundreds of millions of dollars by getting victims to approve their own theft.
How Malicious Token Approvals Are Used to Empty a Wallet
Approval phishing has generated more than a billion dollars in losses since 2021 by exploiting a permission system most wallet users never fully understand.
How a SIM Swap Attack Leads to a Drained Crypto Account
A SIM swap does not steal crypto directly. It steals a phone number, and from there, everything protected by SMS verification becomes reachable.
What Happens When Your Exchange Account Is Compromised
Exchange account compromise usually starts outside the exchange itself, in an email inbox, a phone carrier, or a phishing message, and understanding that sequence shapes what an investigation can find.
What Happens After a Crypto Wallet Hack
The hours right after discovering a wallet hack determine how much can realistically be contained and traced. Here is the order that actually matters.
Hardware Wallet Security Mistakes That Still Lead to Losses
A hardware wallet removes online exposure, not human error. Backup mistakes, data breaches at manufacturers, and misidentified cold wallets have all led to major losses.
How Phishing Steals Cryptocurrency
Phishing is still the single most common way cryptocurrency gets stolen. Here is how the different phishing techniques actually work, and why they keep succeeding even as people become more aware of them.
Fake Customer Support Scams Targeting Crypto Users
Fake customer support scams target the exact moment a crypto user is most vulnerable, right after something has already gone wrong. Here is how the scam works and how to spot the difference between real help and a second attack.
Why Fake Crypto Giveaways Still Work
Send one coin, get two back. It is one of the oldest crypto scams around, and it is still costing victims millions through hijacked YouTube channels and AI generated livestreams. Here is why it keeps working.
How Fake Airdrop Scams Steal Wallet Access
Real airdrops have trained crypto users to expect free tokens for simply holding a wallet. Scammers exploit that exact expectation to get victims to connect their wallets to draining contracts.
Inside the Elon Musk Impersonation Crypto Scam
Elon Musk has become the single most impersonated figure in cryptocurrency fraud, with no involvement of his own. Here is how these scams are built and why his name in particular keeps getting used.
How Celebrity Impersonation Crypto Scams Operate
Elon Musk is far from the only public figure being used to sell fraudulent crypto schemes. Musicians, actors, and online creators are all being cloned to lend fake credibility to scams they have never heard of.
How Deepfake Videos Are Used in Crypto Scams
Deepfake enabled crypto fraud reportedly tripled in a single year. Here is how AI generated video and voice are being used to fabricate endorsements, CEO instructions, and entire fake broadcasts.
How Pig Butchering Scams Work
Pig butchering scams now account for more reported cryptocurrency losses than any other fraud category. Here is how the scheme actually works, step by step.
How Romance Scams Lead to Cryptocurrency Losses
Cryptocurrency is now the leading payment method in reported romance scams. Here is how a genuine seeming relationship turns into a financial loss, and why it happens to smart, careful people.
Common Telegram Crypto Scams to Recognize
Telegram fraud reports jumped sharply over the past year, driven largely by fake trading bots and impersonation accounts. Here is what these scams look like and how they operate.
How WhatsApp Crypto Scams Typically Begin
Many crypto scams now start with an ordinary looking WhatsApp message, a wrong number or a casual job offer. Here is how these conversations escalate into real financial loss.
Discord Crypto Scams and What to Watch For
Discord hosts most major crypto and NFT communities, and attackers have built an entire playbook around compromising servers and draining wallets from inside them. Here is how it works.
How AI Is Changing Cryptocurrency Scams
AI referenced fraud complaints topped nearly 900 million dollars in losses last year in the United States alone. Here is how generative tools are reshaping cryptocurrency scams and what actually still works to stop them.
Business Email Compromise and Cryptocurrency Payment Fraud
Business email compromise remains one of the costliest forms of fraud tracked by the FBI, and a growing share of it now ends with funds converted into cryptocurrency. Here is how these attacks unfold.
How to Identify a Fake Crypto Investment Platform
Fake investment platforms now account for the single largest category of reported crypto losses. Here is how they are built, and how to check one before you deposit anything.
How Fake Cryptocurrency Exchanges Trap Depositors
A fake exchange does not need to steal anything directly. It only needs to convince you the money is still there, right up until you try to take it out.
Fake AI Trading Platforms and How the Pitch Works
Artificial intelligence has become the preferred explanation fraudulent trading platforms use to justify returns that cannot exist. Here is how the pitch is constructed and how it has been prosecuted.
Fake Cryptocurrency Mining Schemes Explained
Cloud mining scams reportedly drained hundreds of millions of dollars in 2025 alone. The pitch relies on a dashboard that has nothing to do with any actual mining hardware.
How Ponzi and Pyramid Schemes Reappear in Cryptocurrency
Bitconnect and OneCoin were not new kinds of fraud. They were a hundred year old structure wrapped in blockchain language, and the pattern keeps returning.
Common NFT Scams and How They Work
One major marketplace has estimated that the large majority of non fungible tokens minted through its own free tools are fake, stolen, or spam. Here is what buyers and creators actually run into.
My Crypto Was Stolen, What Should I Do Now
The steps you take in the first hours after discovering a theft shape what any later investigation can accomplish. Here is the order that actually matters.
What to Do After a Crypto Scam
A clear, ordered set of steps for what to do after a crypto scam, covering what to secure first, who to contact, and the mistakes that make things worse.
Can Stolen Cryptocurrency Be Recovered
A realistic answer to the question every victim asks first: can stolen cryptocurrency actually be recovered, and what determines whether it happens.
How to Trace Stolen Bitcoin
How investigators actually trace stolen Bitcoin, explained in plain language, from the structure of a Bitcoin transaction to how clusters of wallets are identified.
How Investigators Trace Stolen Funds Across Multiple Blockchains
A technical but plain language look at how investigators follow stolen funds as they move across bridges and multiple blockchains, and where that trail gets genuinely hard to follow.
Cryptocurrency Recovery Scams, How the Second Scam Works
How the recovery scam, often called the second scam, targets people who already lost cryptocurrency, and the specific tactics that make it so effective.
Warning Signs of a Fake Crypto Recovery Agent
A practical checklist of warning signs that separate a fake crypto recovery agent from legitimate investigative help, plus the questions worth asking before trusting anyone with your case.
Cryptocurrency Blackmail and Extortion Scams Explained
How cryptocurrency blackmail and sextortion emails actually work, why nearly all of them are bluffs, and the right way to respond if one lands in your inbox.
Why Ransomware Groups Still Demand Cryptocurrency Payments
Why ransomware operators continue to demand cryptocurrency despite years of tracing advances, what current payment data shows, and why paying is still discouraged.
How DeFi Exploits Happen, Explained Simply
Decentralized finance protocols move billions of dollars through open source code with no central operator to call in an emergency. Here is how attackers actually break that code, and why the resulting losses are so difficult to reverse.
How Cross Chain Laundering Complicates Fund Tracing
More than twenty one billion dollars in illicit funds moved through bridges and cross asset services in 2025 alone. Here is why criminals move stolen crypto between chains, and how investigators follow it anyway.
Flash Loan Attacks, A Plain Language Explanation
A flash loan lets someone borrow millions of dollars with zero collateral, provided it is repaid within the same transaction. Here is how that feature, built for legitimate arbitrage, became one of DeFi's most common attack tools.
How Cryptocurrency Mixing Services Affect an Investigation
Mixing services pool cryptocurrency from many users together to obscure which coins came from where. Here is how they actually work, what happened to Tornado Cash and Sinbad, and why mixed funds are slower to trace, not impossible.
Lessons From Recent Major Exchange Hacks
Bybit, WazirX, and CoinDCX were each breached in a different way, yet the underlying failure points repeat across all three. Here is what recent exchange hacks actually reveal.
State Linked Hacking Groups and Large Scale Crypto Theft
According to Chainalysis, North Korean state linked hackers stole roughly two billion dollars in cryptocurrency in 2025 alone. Here is what credible public reporting says about how these groups operate and why they are different from ordinary criminal actors.
Cryptocurrency Theft in 2026, What the Numbers Show
Chainalysis data puts total illicit cryptocurrency activity at roughly one hundred fifty four billion dollars in 2025. Here is what the numbers actually show about who is stealing crypto, how much, and where the money goes.
How and Where to Report Cryptocurrency Theft
Reporting stolen cryptocurrency will not always lead to an immediate arrest, but it remains a meaningful step. Here is exactly where to file a report, what to gather beforehand, and what actually happens afterward.