Wired had a great long read on how the US, UK and South Korean agencies took down an online child porn ring with devastating thoroughness, despite the ring operating in the dark web, and using only cryptocurrency for its transactions.
Despite the long-held notion that Crypto offers anonymity, it turns out it is not for a couple of reasons. One, because of the consensus protocol that blockchain uses, where each transaction is verified by all the other users (nodes), it means that transaction is forever embedded/recorded. Sort of like a time stamp. Number two, at some point, there has to be an exit where the bitcoin is converted into cash or enters a regulated space such as a crypto exchange where owners are required to keep records of accounts' holders.
So it was that Chainalysis, a crypto analysis firm, managed to come up with a way to track bitcoin transactions through the blockchain up to where they exit into the real world. Reactor, as its tool is called, has helped investigators across the world break up criminal chains and hacker groups who operate in the cryptoworld ostensibly because of its anonymity.
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