How do I investigate an address or transaction?

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My non-profit organization received a donation for which no one contacted us to claim credit. I am intrigued and would like to find out as much as I can about the donor using the blockchain. What services / tools exist to do this? Some ideas I have are:

  • Did he/she embed a text message in the transaction?
  • Can any information be gleaned from the web of transactions involving that address?

RentFree

Posted 2013-07-18T14:01:26.757

Reputation: 2 391

check out blockchain.info

Loourr 2013-07-18T15:22:07.457

Answers

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The simplest way to get information about the transaction is to use the Blockchain web site. They have some easy-use-tools that can show you which transactions the funds came from, and the submitting IP address. Use the URL http://blockchain.info/tx/transactionid.

For example: http://blockchain.info/tx/cc4ffa39d766fadfc6bd48a2144492e6e7b07c9b4046f7edbad3ec63869dd071

I don't think you'll get much information about the IP address, because addresses are not part of the transaction information. A Bitcoin host only knows the address of the peer that relayed a transaction, which usually isn't the originating address.

You can trace what other transactions your donation came from, but putting a name to a bitcoin address can be difficult. Your best bet might be to do a Google search for the address of some of the upstream transactions. If someone used their well-known address for donating, then you might be able to find them. But if the originating addresses were never put onto a web page by their owners, then you're out of luck.

If you are a government and the funds originated through one of the currency exchanges, you could use a warrant to get whatever information the exchange has on a transaction. Given the state of privacy rights these days... well don't get me started.

slashingweapon

Posted 2013-07-18T14:01:26.757

Reputation: 356