Safeguarding the Evidential Value of Forensic Cryptocurrency Investigations
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Analyzing cryptocurrency payment flows has become a key forensic method in law enforcement and is nowadays used to investigate a wide spectrum of criminal activities. However, despite its widespread adoption, the evidential value of obtained findings in court is still largely unclear. In this paper, we focus on the key ingredients of modern cryptocurrency analytic techniques, which are clustering heuristics and attribution tags. By empirically quantifying the effect of CoinJoin transactions, we illustrate that clustering heuristics can lead to false interpretations. We then discuss clustering heuristics and attribution tags in the light of internationally accepted legal standards and rules for substantiating suspicions and providing evidence in court. From that we derive a set of legal key requirements and translate them into a data sharing framework that builds on existing legal and technical standards. Integrating that framework in modern cryptocurrency analytics tools could allow more efficient and effective investigations, while safeguarding their evidential value.
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