Following the Money On-Chain: Crypto Tracing for Illicit Finance

NOTE: If you register, you MUST attend. If you can no longer attend, please unregister.

Cryptocurrency has become core infrastructure for the actors defense and intelligence professionals track most closely — sanctioned states, proliferation
networks, and transnational trafficking and terror organizations. This hands-on, two-hour session demystifies how blockchains actually work and teaches the first and most durable piece of investigative tradecraft: following value across a public ledger.

Starting from first principles—no prior crypto knowledge required—students will learn to read a blockchain as an intelligence analyst does, distinguish the major transaction models, and apply address-clustering heuristics to a real Bitcoin transaction using only free, open-source block explorers. The session closes with the money-laundering typologies and on-chain signatures that turn a wall of transactions into an answerable intelligence question.

Everything covered is unclassified and open-source. Format: 90 minutes, interactive. Please bring a laptop — all tools are free and browser-based. No prerequisites are required.

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Co-hosted with: SAIS Strategy, Security, Intelligence & Technology