BlockTag: Design and applications of a tagging system for blockchain analysis
This work addresses the need for better blockchain analysis tools for law enforcement and privacy researchers, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing tagging concepts.
The authors tackled the problem of annotating blockchains with auxiliary data for applications like e-crime investigations, presenting BlockTag, an open-source tagging system that facilitates linking Bitcoin addresses to user activities, as demonstrated through three analyses in privacy research and law enforcement.
Annotating blockchains with auxiliary data is useful for many applications. For example, e-crime investigations of illegal Tor hidden services, such as Silk Road, often involve linking Bitcoin addresses, from which money is sent or received, to user accounts and related online activities. We present BlockTag, an open-source tagging system for blockchains that facilitates such tasks. We describe BlockTag's design and present three analyses that illustrate its capabilities in the context of privacy research and law enforcement.