Blockchain Forensics for Counsel

Find the crypto. Trace it. Value it.

Attorney-engaged cryptocurrency asset identification, tracing, and valuation for contested matters. Marital assets a spouse has not disclosed, digital holdings in a decedent's estate, and funds at issue in civil litigation. Built by a former Chainalysis engineer who co-instructed federal cryptocurrency-investigation training, and written so it holds up when the other side pushes back.

Discuss a Matter → Scope & Limits
Ex-Chainalysis Engineer
FLETCCo-Instructor
BTCETH & EVM Chains
“

The chain remembers. A careful trace turns transactions into a record a court can read.

Link Analysis
Flow-of-funds graph
Stated Limits
Written into every report
Scope & Limits

Identification, tracing, and valuation. Not recovery.

This practice answers three questions for counsel: does cryptocurrency exist in this matter, where did it move, and what was it worth on the date that governs. Recovery, seizure, freezing, and enforcement are not offered and are not implied. Those are remedies a court orders and counsel pursues. The work here is the evidence that supports the argument.

01

Asset identification

Establishing whether cryptocurrency exists in the matter at all, which is usually the threshold question and rarely answered on the blockchain first. Bank statements, credit reports, tax filings, and properly directed exchange subpoenas surface the fiat on-ramps. The gap between dollars that went in and assets that came back out is where the on-chain work begins.

  • Review of produced financial discovery for exchange and on-ramp activity
  • Guidance on what to request, and from which custodians, before a subpoena goes out
  • Written findings on what the records support and what they do not
02

Flow-of-funds tracing

Reconstructing where identified assets moved and which exchanges, bridges, and services appear in the path. Attribution is stated only where the data supports it, and the report says plainly where the trail ends and why.

  • Bitcoin, Ethereum, and EVM-compatible chains
  • Link analysis and clustering, with the heuristics named rather than assumed
  • Every report states the tooling used and its known limits
03

Valuation on the governing date

Cryptocurrency valuation is a legal question before it is an arithmetic one, and the answer moves depending on which date the matter turns on. Date of filing, date of separation, date of death, date of distribution, and date of trial can produce materially different numbers on the same holdings.

  • Valuation to whichever date the matter requires, with the source and method documented
  • Multiple-date comparison where the governing date is contested
  • Illiquid and thinly traded assets flagged rather than priced past what the market supports
04

Written to survive cross-examination

The blockchain is evidence. A report written about it is argument, and opposing counsel is entitled to test it. Reports here separate the two: what the ledger shows as fact, what the analysis infers as opinion, and where the inference reaches the limits of available data.

An address is not control. Identifying a wallet that holds cryptocurrency is not the same as proving who holds the keys, and any report claiming otherwise has overreached.

Under-claiming is the standing rule. It is also what holds up under scrutiny.

Who Engages This Work

Retained by counsel, for counsel's matter

Engagements come through attorneys. The client is the firm, the work product runs through counsel, and the attorney stays the one in front of the court.

Family Law

Marital cryptocurrency a spouse has not disclosed. Standard discovery sweeps past self-custodied assets because there is no custodian to compel, and the gap is where the work starts.

Probate & Estate Administration

Inventorying and valuing a decedent's digital holdings for the personal representative, including assets the family knows existed but cannot locate or access.

Civil Litigation

Flow-of-funds analysis where cryptocurrency is at issue, and rebuttal review when the other side has produced a tracing report that needs testing.

Background

Trained where federal investigators are trained

Former Chainalysis Engineer

Customer Success Engineer with direct experience deploying airgapped blockchain-investigation solutions for U.S. and foreign government agencies.

FLETC Co-Instructor

Co-instructed cryptocurrency-investigation training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Brunswick, GA.

Methodology Discipline

Direct working knowledge of clustering heuristics, attribution methodology, and the operational limits of commercial blockchain-analysis platforms.

Builder's Edge

Ongoing development of tracing and graph-analysis tooling, so the analysis is not limited to what a single commercial platform chooses to surface.

From the Lab

Written for the attorneys who actually use this work

Public writeups on how cryptocurrency forensics fits into a contested matter, in language a family-law, probate, or civil practitioner can hand to a client or put in front of a court.

Cryptocurrency Investigation · June 2026

A Bridge Is Not a Mixer

When the other side says cryptocurrency "moved to another blockchain," the implication is that the money is now beyond reach. In the common case, that is a bluff, not a vanishing act. Bridges preserve a joinable record on both legs of a transfer. Mixers, by design, cryptographically sever a specific link. The two are conflated more often than they should be.

What you can credibly tell a judge depends entirely on which one you are looking at. A bridge usually means the path is reconstructable from public records and can be documented to a standard that withstands challenge. A mixer means the right analysis says so plainly while pursuing the off-chain evidence that survives.

Read the article → Discuss your matter →
Family Law · June 2026

Where Hidden Crypto Actually Hides in a Divorce

Standard financial discovery, subpoenaing the bank, the brokerage, the employer, sweeps right past self-custodied cryptocurrency because there is no custodian to compel. The strongest first evidence usually isn't on the blockchain at all. It is in records you may already have access to: bank statements, credit reports, tax filings, and properly directed exchange subpoenas show the fiat on-ramps. That gap, between dollars that went in and assets that came back out, is where the on-chain trail actually begins.

Two distinctions matter once an asset surfaces, and getting them wrong can send a case sideways: an address is not control, and valuation date is its own problem.

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Civil Litigation · Methodology · June 2026

How to Challenge a Cryptocurrency Tracing Report

A blockchain tracing report is expert opinion, not measurement. The ledger underneath it is the only part that qualifies as fact. Almost everything else, the clustering, the attribution labels, the assumption of key control, the tracing method through commingled addresses, the completeness claims, and the valuation, is interpretation, and interpretation is what the rules of evidence let you test.

Six places confident reports tend to break down, framed for attorneys under Daubert and the December 2023 amendments to Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Applies anywhere a tracing report shows up: divorce, civil fraud, asset recovery, probate, and bankruptcy.

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Cryptocurrency at issue in your matter?

A scoping conversation costs nothing and usually settles quickly whether the analysis is worth running. If the records will not support what your case needs, you will hear that first rather than after an invoice.

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Engagements are project-scoped with a written deliverable. This practice provides asset identification, tracing, and valuation. It does not recover, seize, freeze, or repatriate assets, and it does not provide legal advice.