Background and Core Objective
According to a report by CoinDesk, blockchain analytics company Chainalysis has officially unveiled a new methodological proposal designed to establish a unified standard framework for on-chain fund tracing, targeting law enforcement agencies and investigators. The core goal is to identify address clusters and determine their possible control relationships, addressing the current lack of standardized practices in on-chain forensics. Jacob Illum, Chief Scientist at Chainalysis, stated that the proposal aims to answer "what evidence allows us to conclude that these addresses belong to the same entity," while emphasizing that on-chain analysis itself cannot directly identify end users and must be supplemented with legal investigative methods involving centralized entities such as exchanges.
Technical Framework: Ontology and Two-Layer Structure
The proposal defines the on-chain analysis structure using an "ontology" form, systematically deconstructing the concept of "cluster" (address clustering), which currently lacks unified standards in the industry. Specifically, Chainalysis divides address clustering into wallet segments and functional roles, describing on-chain relationships through a two-layer structure: the first layer defines the transaction graph structure, representing fund flow patterns between addresses; the second layer evaluates inference confidence, providing a quantitative assessment of the reliability of clustering relationships. This layered design aims to enhance the interpretability and legal applicability of on-chain forensic methods, allowing investigators to better understand the logic behind analytical conclusions.
Practical Validation and Industry Impact
Chainalysis noted that the framework has been validated through its practical experience in cases handled by the U.S. Department of Justice, including the analysis applied in the Bitcoin Fog mixer case. Bitcoin Fog is a well-known mixing service used to obfuscate Bitcoin transaction paths, and Chainalysis’ analytical tools assisted law enforcement in tracing fund flows. The release of this proposal signals Chainalysis’ intention to drive the formation of more uniform technical standards for on-chain analysis in law enforcement and compliance through open discussion. Currently, the standard proposal is open for industry feedback, and it is expected to influence on-chain forensics practices and regulatory frameworks in more countries in the future.