Dark Web Tool For Checking Dirty Bitcoin Shuts Down: Report

The Dark web tool for checking dirty Bitcoin as we reported yesterday in our bitcoin news, has just shut down after its service provider cut off the access and reported users to law enforcement.

Antinalysis allowed criminals on the dark web to produce risk reports on their BTC wallets and the tool shut down after its service provider stopped all access and reproted users to law enforcement. Antinalysis shut down today after anti-money laundering software AML Bot from the data was pulled, cut off their third-party service. The AML Bot confirmed that addresses used the tool were reported to law enforcement. Blockchain analytics company Elliptic said that law enforcement could identify the creators.

The creator of this darknet service has contacted me with a statement. They say the site was taken down 8hrs after our report came out and that it is not designed just for criminals: https://t.co/OK39RV6jHd pic.twitter.com/LNLMcHVL4x

— Joe Tidy (@joetidy) August 16, 2021

Over the weekend, Blockchain security analysts discovered the dark web tool for checking dirty bitcoin called Antinalysis that produces criminal risk reports that can be used to identify illicit BTC. The sudden attention forced the tool to shut down as one of the main providers AML Bot cut off the access. AML Bot confirmed that the company that provided Antinalysis with access to the service and made an internal investigation and then shut down the Antinalysis account but the AML Bot is itself a reseller for the Crystal Blockchain which is another blockchain analytics tool:

“We’d like to assure you that we are working on intelligent measures to prevent such registration in the future.”

The company confirmed that it reported all of the relevant addresses which used Antinalysis to law enforcement and this could provide leads that could help ID the creator as Tom Robinson who is the co-founder of Elliptic said. At the same time, the anonymous technical administrator of Antinalysis described the crackdown by AML bot as the unlawful warranted seizure of the data source which they blamed on the media exposure. The Antinalysis technical admin said:

“We consider ourself [sic.] activists that dislike state agencies conducting mass surveillance under the name of national security and criminal investigations.”

Antinalysis allows users to check whether a specific BTC can be traced to crime and once a BTC wallet was linked, the tool will break down from where BTC in the wallet originated and how risky it is to hold it. The ability to conduct an analysis of this kind is in part due to the transparency inherent in blockchain technology. The tool classified BTC earned from darknet markets, ransom, and theft as extreme risk while Bitcoin from exchanges and newly minted coins were categorized as “no risk.”