The irs and the US attorneys' office in DC had taken an unprecedented approach, treating a massive child sexual abuse materials case as a financial investigation, and it had succeeded. Amidst all their detective work, it had been Bitcoin's blockchain that served as their true lodestar, leading them through a landmark case. Without crypto tracing, Faruqui argues, they would never have managed to map out and identify so many of the site's users. "That was the only path through this darkness," he says. "The darker the dark-net gets, the way that you shine the light is following the money."
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