Bridges, mixers and exchanges
Three places a trail commonly stops, what each one does, and what can still be said afterwards.
#Bridges
A bridge coordinates transfers on separate ledgers. A source-side deposit alone does not prove destination delivery. Linking the sides requires protocol-specific, network-qualified message fields and destination execution evidence; similar amount, time or recipient alone is not a confirmed match.
#Mixers and collaborative transactions
Mixers pool deposits from many users so that withdrawals cannot be tied to deposits by inspection. On Bitcoin, collaborative transactions combine inputs from several participants into outputs of equal size. In both cases the structure is visible on the chain, and the pairing of who received what is not.
#Centralised exchanges
A deposit to an exchange credits an internal account that the chain does not show. What leaves an exchange hot wallet afterwards belongs to the exchange's pooled funds, not to the depositor. Past this point the next step is a request to the exchange, not more tracing.
- Naming the kind of service is a fact. Naming who used it usually is not.
- A trail that ends at a service has ended. Say where and why.