What on-chain data cannot tell you
The limits that hold no matter how good the tooling is.
A public ledger records that valid transactions happened. Everything about people sits outside it.
- Identity. A ledger shows which key signed. It does not show whose hand it was.
- Intent. A transfer looks the same whether it was a payment, a gift, a theft or a mistake.
- Ownership over time. Keys are shared, sold, stolen and rotated.
- Completeness. Any lookup covers a window. Absence from that window is not absence from history.
- Safety. Not appearing on a sanctions or scam list is not clearance.
Attribution comes from evidence the chain does not hold: exchange records, device seizures, admissions, leaked data. When a report names someone, ask which of its statements are on-chain records and which are someone's inference, and who made it.