Make the
exchanges
light up.
Last-mile traceability to the exchanges.
“Which on-chain addresses actually belong to the exchanges?” Readers kept asking after the last report. Nobody had mapped them, and a forensic trace goes cold the moment funds reach an exchange. Your tracer slips in and moves silently through its wallets; a non-fungible token cannot commingle, so the last mile finally has an exact map.
Cardano has no map of exchange wallets
A question readers kept asking after the last report: which on-chain addresses actually belong to the exchanges?
“Which on-chain addresses actually belong to the exchanges?”> readers, after the last report
Nobody has mapped them. Every exchange’s wallets are an unlabelled web: a hub, a few hops, a question mark over who owns it. No comprehensive map exists, so this study builds one, in the open.
Drop a tracer, watch it light up
- 1Mint a tracerOne unique native token. It cannot be split or duplicated.
- 2Deposit it to your exchangeSend it to your own deposit address; we build the tx for you.
- 3Follow it on-chainOne UTxO carries it at every hop. We follow it and update the live map.
Why it works: unlike fungible ada, a non-fungible tracer cannot commingle.
coins mix in a UTxO, the thread is lost
one UTxO carries it at every hop
Wherever the tracer stops, a wallet gets tagged
Deposits sweep to a hot wallet for liquidity, then to cold storage for safety. The non-fungible tracer rides every move.
Sits, swept, or stored, every stop is a wallet we tag.
A public map of which wallets belong to which exchange
Each label is inferred from independent voluntary deposits. On-chain footprint only, not a confirmed entity.
A reusable, public map of exchange-controlled wallets, built to close the loop for any forensic study: when a trace dead-ends at an exchange wallet, the map says which exchange, turning a dead end into an answer. For each cluster we publish the full tracer-label distribution; the agreement among independent depositors, plus whether the address reads as exchange infrastructure, sets its confidence. See the live map →
You mint to map.
This continues the report’s transparency work, from a new angle. A trace goes cold the moment funds reach an exchange, so you mint tracers to use them: drop them into your exchanges and they reveal which wallets the exchanges own. Tools, not collectibles. The map is the point, and it stays public.
What makes a label trustworthy
The on-chain flow a tracer takes cannot be forged. The self-reported exchange name is the soft input, so confidence rests on how many independent depositors agree.
For each cluster we publish the full tracer-label split. One report is a claim; many independent reports converging on the same wallet is evidence. A wallet that reads as exchange infrastructure adds to its confidence. Thin or single-source clusters are marked as such, not dressed up.
> We publish the findings in the future, when the data is sufficient to stand behind and the timing is compatible with the wider investigation.
> This study will not run indefinitely: we update the map as appropriate, and once the findings stabilize it concludes. Because the data is on-chain, anyone can keep tracing exchanges from the tracer policy id and assets and update the findings afterward.
Built to resist poisoning
A bad actor can send a tracer to the wrong, or an arbitrary, address and report a false exchange.
On-chain topology is immutable, so the flow a tracer takes cannot be forged. The self-reported exchange label is a soft input, and poisoning it is the main attack to defend against.
Each cluster shows every exchange its tracers claimed, with counts. The dominant label and the agreement among independent depositors set its confidence; a lone false report stays visible as an outlier, not silently dropped.
A label only counts if the address independently reads as exchange infrastructure: heavy throughput, many distinct depositors, the token junk-drawer, third-party explorer labels. A fabricated target address fails this test.
We seed exchanges with our own honest deposits. Reports that contradict those anchors are caught and down-weighted.
Converging depositors that share a funding origin or one burst of activity count as a single voice, so no lone actor can manufacture agreement.
Every false report burns a tracer, a fee, and the min-ADA that rides with it. Out-numbering honest depositors on a real exchange gets expensive fast.
Every label carries its depositor count, the converging txids, and its corroboration. Thin or contested clusters are withheld. On-chain footprint only, not a confirmed entity.
> A malicious actor can mint tracers and deposit them with a false label. Data integrity holds as long as honest depositors outnumber the malicious ones, which is cheap for us and expensive for an attacker. see how false reports surface on the map →
Three steps, start to finish
Pay 1 ADA per tracer, minimum 10. They are minted straight to your wallet in the same transaction.
We build the tx, you pick the exchange and sign.
Weekly analysis as tracers flow through, labelling the exchange wallets.
1 ADA buys one tracer, minimum 10 per order, minted straight to your wallet in the same transaction you pay. Want more? Place another order any time. Tracers are unique tokens only: no art, no rarity, no perks.
It traces the exchange, not you.
Our analysis only follows a tracer forward, into the exchange you send it to. But the chain is public, so anyone can read a tracer backward to the wallet that minted it. To keep your part in the study unlinked from your personal funds, do not mint from your personal wallet.
To avoid tying this study to your personal wallets:
- Create a fresh Cardano wallet you use only for this study.
- Fund it with a small withdrawal from a centralised exchange, not a transfer from your existing wallet, so there is no on-chain link back to you.
- Send your 50 ADA to the study from that fresh wallet, and deploy the tracers from it.
Pick a tracer, point it at your exchange
We format your form input into a structured, on-chain metadata record, so anyone can reproduce the study.
{ exchange: "A" }
Only your exchange pick goes in the metadata; the tracer and the deposit are already in the txid and asset name, so the label is permanent and anyone can reproduce it. You just sign.
Get the most from your tracers
This is why an order is a batch, not one token: do not send them all to one address at once. Spread them, and they fan out across more of the exchange's wallets.
If your exchange lets you generate a fresh deposit address, do it and send tracers to several. A new deposit address may be served by a different aggregation wallet, so more of the consolidation layer lights up.
Send in batches over days, not all at once. Deposits get swept on different schedules into different hot and cold wallets, so staggering reveals more of the plumbing.
Map the most, top the board
We keep score: contributors are ranked by the agreed exchange wallets their tracers map. Spread your batch to climb it.
| # | Study wallet | Agreed nodes | Branches | Exchanges | Tracers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | addr1qxmapp…e1f2 | 41 | 14 | 5 | 50 |
| 2 | addr1qymapp…e2f3 | 38 | 12 | 4 | 50 |
| 3 | addr1qzmapp…f3g4 | 33 | 11 | 3 | 50 |
| 4 | addr1qwmapp…g4h5 | 27 | 9 | 3 | 50 |
| 5 | addr1qvmapp…h5j6 | 22 | 8 | 2 | 50 |
| 6 | addr1qumapp…j6k7 | 19 | 6 | 2 | 50 |
| 7 | addr1qtmapp…k7l8 | 14 | 5 | 2 | 50 |
| 8 | addr1qsmapp…l8m9 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 50 |
Only corroborated nodes score, so the board rewards mapping the wider set agrees on, not raw deposit volume or lone claims. Spreading a batch across deposit addresses and over time is how you climb it.
> example board, invented data; it fills in as live tracers land.
We follow them in
Exchange wallets are black holes for NFTs: tracers flow in, never out. Each one settles into the exchange’s infrastructure, and we label every wallet it touches.
Grab a tracer
Mint your tracers, drop them in your exchanges, and watch them light up. Minted to your wallet the moment you pay, minimum 10 per order.
Support the investigation from any chain. It funds the tracing, not a treasury, and it does not mint tracers (those are ADA-only).
bc1qnxx3xg8snykvsj0nufvzj6v4x8dgswthe7t8mp0x89eEc99361B65A73ddd717B322146a3a7776Df876dWNSFmqoauuMBZYtzSspfNuZDTTPa16811SvFz3abJzAn exchange label is an inference from voluntary deposits, on-chain footprint only, not a confirmed entity. Reaching an address shows contact and sweep behaviour, not custody of any named party’s funds. The tracers are research tools, not an investment or a collectible. What this proves, and what it doesn’t →