Examining MintPal Bitcoin Addresses

After the previous blog post investigating where the Moolah bitcoin trail headed, there was some great community feedback. Most of it was positive, and there were even people willing to lend a hand.

Sometimes, the bitcoin community provides Coinalytics with shortcuts. Given an address, and its contextual meaning, it is easier to explain relationships.

This is the case with MintPal, an exchange involved with the now-insolvent Moolah.

@coinalytics check out 1NjBaY8fKg85TfCvP1AoQGUSXjifD5Nw2G, address Ryan received all MintPal funds at

— Ben Doernberg (@BenDoernberg) October 27, 2014

Coinalytics can take addresses provided by the community and relate them to other addresses and entities.

Taking two addresses, 1NjBaY8fKg85TfCvP1AoQGUSXjifD5Nw2G, an address where MintPal received funds from, and 12ERwg1AA7dE9njaitaqLmdbcj2jh543GW, an additional address provided, Coinalytics was able to investigate possible relationships.

Using cluster analysis, a method explained in another blog post, it becomes clear these two addresses are related.

The 1NjBaY8fKg85TfCvP1AoQGUSXjifD5Nw2G address is part of cluster with a negligible 0.0773 BTC balance. It has over 1000 clusters in, about 580 clusters out with over 900 total transactions.

The 12ERwg1AA7dE9njaitaqLmdbcj2jh543GW address is part of a cluster that has had transactions from 1NjBaY8fKg85TfCvP1AoQGUSXjifD5Nw2G. It currently has a zero balance. It has 596 clusters in, 21 clusters out with almost 3,000 total transactions.

This first image shows these two addresses at the top right, and the clusters they have sent bitcoin to.

This next visualization is the same, but instead of displaying the cluster identification number, it shows balances. The pattern suggests money is moving around deliberately; the clusters at the bottom are positioned to show they are empty.

Taking a look at the recipient clusters with the highest balance in the graph, the two at the top left with a 9.1309 BTC and 5.1601 BTC balances, displays some interesting relationships.

Below we can see the details of these two clusters. The highest-balance 9.1309 BTC recipient cluster depleted a small portion of its bitcoin holdings, represented in the lower right. The cluster with a 5.1601 BTC balance is to the left.

The above graphic shows a two-cluster hop from the original 1NjBaY8fKg85TfCvP1AoQGUSXjifD5Nw2G address to a cluster currently holding over 1,000 BTC. There is also another cluster not shown holding more than 8,717 BTC.

Coinalytics could continue to follow this trail, uncovering addresses with bitcoin balances to see where funds have moved.

However, the purpose here is only to explain a general approach to analyzing bitcoin’s ledger. This is a demonstration how the bitcoin transaction system flows, and that there is a clear distinction between public and private information.

The blockchain is public, its data available for deep analysis – but identifiable information about bitcoin addresses is needed for further intelligence. This can be kept private except when solicited by the community, governments or other authorities.

For more on how Coinalytics is leveraging blockchain data, subscribe below for updates to the blog.