Tracing Crypto, Proving Guilt: Evidentiary Thresholds for Blockchain Forensics in Court Proceedings

The process of examining and evaluating transactions on a blockchain in order to monitor the flow of money and identify illicit activity is known as blockchain forensics. Blockchain forensics can alternatively be called blockchain intelligence or blockchain analytics. As virtual asset markets have grown, so too have blockchain-enabled crimes such as ransomware payments, exchange and bridge hacks, investment frauds, darknet transactions, and sophisticated money laundering. Thus the paper examines the role played by the blockchain forensics to bridge the gap between pseudonymous on-chain activity and real-world identification, especially by identifying "choke points" where criminals interact with identifiable infrastructure or regulated intermediaries like exchanges, custodians, and payment processors. It also delves into techniques which constitute blockchain forensics, and how do they support investigation and asset recovery and the governance practices which make blockchain forensic outputs legally robust. Then the paper also examines whether blockchain records are valuable as evidence and the evidentiary framework for proving blockchain trails across disputes.