As the cryptocurrency landscape continues to evolve, so too must the tools that investigators rely on to track, analyze, and manage the complex data associated with these digital assets.
Crystal Intelligence has always been at the forefront of providing cutting-edge solutions for crypto compliance officers, investigators, and analysts. With our latest updates, we are taking another significant step forward in making crypto investigations more efficient, accurate, and accessible.
The updates: what’s new?
We are excited to introduce three major updates:
- Enhanced Bulk Upload
- Addresses Available in Cases:
- Aggregated Transactions on Visualization
These features are designed to address specific challenges that our users face daily, improving the overall workflow and effectiveness of their investigative processes. Let’s dive deeper into each of these updates, exploring why they are crucial for the modern crypto investigator.
Enhanced Visualization Bulk Upload
One of the most time-consuming aspects of crypto investigations is managing and analyzing large datasets. Investigators often need to upload and visualize hundreds of transactions or addresses, which can be cumbersome if done individually.
Our new Enhanced Visualization Bulk Upload feature allows users to upload up to 100 transactions or addresses at once, either via CSV files or through a streamlined manual input interface.
Why it matters
The ability to handle large datasets efficiently is critical in crypto investigations. With the increasing volume of transactions on blockchain networks, investigators need tools to keep up with the scale.
This feature reduces the time spent on data entry by enabling bulk uploads, allowing investigators to focus on more important analysis.
For instance, during the investigation of the famous KuCoin hack in 2020, analysts needed to track hundreds of transactions linked to various addresses.
Without a bulk upload feature, this process would have taken many hours at the time of the investigation, potentially delaying critical insights that could lead to the identification and apprehension of the perpetrators.
Addresses Available in Cases:
In corporate investigations, particularly those involving cryptocurrency, the ability to swiftly access related cases is crucial for efficiency and thoroughness.
Our new feature is designed to support corporate investigations teams by enabling them to view and access linked cases directly from the address details within the Explorer and Visualization tools.
This enhancement not only improves accessibility but also proactively notifies teams when an address being added to a case is already linked to other ongoing investigations.
Why it Matters
Corporate investigations often involve untangling a complex web of interconnected cases, especially in the context of cryptocurrency. Investigators must determine how various addresses and transactions are related, which requires seamless access to comprehensive data.
This feature ensures that users can quickly navigate through linked cases, making the investigative process more fluid and reducing the risk of overlooking critical connections.
For instance, in a scenario where multiple cryptocurrency addresses are linked to a money laundering network, investigators need to cross-reference numerous cases to piece together the complete narrative.
By having the address available in cases users have instant access to related case details, saving time and enhancing the accuracy of findings.
Moreover, this feature fosters better collaboration among corporate investigation teams. It allows multiple investigators to work on different facets of a case without losing sight of the overall investigation.
By providing easy access to linked cases, we are helping create a more cohesive and efficient investigative process.
Aggregated Transactions: Simplifying Complex Data
Just as managing huge datasets is a challenge, so does analyzing large volumes of transactions, especially when trying to understand the flow of funds between multiple addresses.
The Aggregated Transactions on Visualization feature solves this by allowing users to aggregate multiple transactions on the graph.
This feature enables users to select two addresses or entities and group transactions between them. The aggregated transactions are displayed as an extended line on the graph. This line represents the sum in fiat currency of all included transactions, providing a clearer and more intuitive view of the data.
Why it matters
Transaction aggregation is vital for understanding complex transaction networks. Investigators frequently encounter situations where hundreds of transactions take place between a group of addresses. Manually aggregating this data is not only time-consuming but also susceptible to errors. With this new feature, users can easily visualize aggregated transactions. This reduces the cognitive load and makes it simpler to identify patterns or anomalies.
The take-down of Hydra in 2022 involved analysts tracing the flow of funds between several addresses linked to the darknet marketplace. Given that Hydra was a darknet marketplace with around 17 million customers and over 19,000 seller accounts registered on the market, and its sales amounted to at least 1.23€ billion in 2020 alone – the sheer volume of transactions would have made it difficult to see the overall picture.
In such as case, aggregating the transactions would have enabled investigators to move more quickly, by identifying the key addresses involved and tracing the funds back to their origin.
This feature proved to be very useful in our investigation of the WazirX hack. Following the test transactions the hacker made on September 2, 26 further transactions were made – 2600ETC (or approximately $6.5m) was sent to the 100 ETH deposit address on Tornado Cash.
We used the aggregation feature to illustrate this neatly as shown below.
Real-world applications of Crystal’s investigations solutions
Introducing these features is not just about adding new tools to our platform; it’s about addressing real-world challenges faced by crypto investigators every day.
The increasing complexity of blockchain networks, the growing volume of transactions, and the ever-present threat of illicit activities in the crypto space make it imperative for investigators to have access to advanced, reliable tools.
Whether it’s the ability to quickly upload and visualize large datasets, the ease of navigating between related cases, or the simplification of complex transaction data, each feature has been designed with the investigator in mind.
