
Original author: StarPlatinum
Original translation: TechFlow
He was scammed out of over $15,000 when buying cryptocurrency in 2017. To understand what happened, he started researching blockchain explorers. Today, he's become one of the most formidable investigators in the crypto space.
Who is ZachXBT?
Before becoming a blockchain detective, ZachXBT was just an ordinary retail investor. He trusted the projects and poured money into collecting NFTs. Then came the scams. Then came the hackers. In 2018, he lost over $15,000 in ETH. So, he opened Etherscan and started mining.
Original video link: Click here
He learned on his own. He tracked wallets through mixers, joined open-source intelligence (OSINT) circles, and mapped fraud flowcharts on paper. He had never studied finance or worked in tech. Armed with only public tools and plenty of time, he delved deeper and deeper. By May 2021, he was ready to act.
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His first case exposed the suspicious financing of Impact Theory. Then came the Rogue Society incident: 15,777 NFTs were minted. The developers vanished, and Zach tracked the funds. He tracked wallets and published Discord receipts. Eventually, the founders came forward. And that was just the beginning of his story.
He uncovered the $70 million Pixelmon debacle, exposing how the team used minting funds to purchase Bored Apes. He then dismantled a phishing ring that stole $2.5 million in BAYC NFTs. Zach identified the scammers through wallet tracing. Ultimately, five suspects were arrested in France, and police publicly thanked him for his work.
In 2022, ZachXBT faced his biggest case yet. He published a 10-part report exposing the inner workings of Machi's "Big Brother." He linked 21 wallets to $37 million in missing funds. Machi subsequently sued him for defamation. The crypto community swiftly mobilized, raising $1 million for Zach's legal defense. Zach refused to back down. Ultimately, however, Machi withdrew the lawsuit.
ZachXBT continued his investigation, tracking down the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group, responsible for the Ronin and Harmony bridge vulnerabilities. He mapped the flow of funds, revealing the path of $200 million through Tornado, ChipMixer, and Asian exchanges. He then shared this information with law enforcement, facilitating the freezing of the funds.
Zach has never worked for any agency, yet his investigations have attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies worldwide. The US Secret Service has cited his research, and French cybercrime authorities have called him faster than the police. Arkham hired him to uncover the identities of wallet holders. To date, he has helped recover over $435 million in stolen funds. He has done all of this anonymously, never appearing publicly.
He has exposed numerous crypto influencers, including BitBoy, Logan Paul, Lark Davis, and Kyle Chasse. He remains unafraid of their lawyers or large followings. He has tracked down phishing scams, airdrop sellers, influencer front-runners, and insider traders. In four years, he has published over 200 investigative reports.
In 2025, Paradigm officially announced that Zach had joined the team as an incident response consultant. Co-founder Matt Huang publicly thanked him for recovering over $350 million for victims. Despite the passage of four years, Zach still retains his cartoon platypus avatar and his unwavering pursuit of the truth.
ZachXBT has become an industry standard. His investigations not only changed exchange policies, but also helped bring scammers to justice and transformed on-chain analysis into a force for good. Starting with exposing scams, he built a reputation as one of the most trusted names in Web 3.
He's the crypto world's detective: ZachXBT.
If you would like to support ZachXBT’s work, here is his donation wallet address:
EVM:
0 x 9 D 727911 B 54 C 455 B 0071 A 7 B 682 FcF 4 Bc 444 B 5596
SOL:investigations.sol
BTC:
bc 1 qus 70 g 077 qqpue 70 ldk 6 grvh 3 qexvfhu 5 kn 6 wv 7


