Author: StarPlatinum
Translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow
He was scammed when buying cryptocurrency in 2017, losing over $15,000. To figure out what happened, he began studying blockchain explorers. Today, he has become one of the most respected investigators in the crypto space.
Who exactly is ZachXBT?
Before becoming a blockchain detective, ZachXBT was just an ordinary retail investor. He trusted projects and invested heavily in NFT collections. Then, scams followed one after another. Later, he suffered a hacking attack. In 2018, he lost over $15,000 in ETH. So, he opened Etherscan and started mining.
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He learned on his own. He tracked wallets through mixers, joined the open-source intelligence (OSINT) circle, and drew scam flowcharts on paper. He never studied finance and has never worked in the tech industry. Using only public tools and a lot of time, he explored step by step. By May 2021, he was ready to take action.
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His first case exposed the suspicious funding of 'Impact Theory'. Then, the Rogue Society incident erupted: 15,777 NFTs were minted. The developers went silent, and Zach tracked the flow of funds. He traced wallets and made Discord receipts public. In the end, the founders had to show up. And this was just the beginning of his story.
He exposed the $70 million Pixelmon disaster. He revealed how the team used minting funds to purchase Bored Apes. Subsequently, he dismantled a phishing gang that stole $2.5 million in BAYC NFTs. Zach tracked the wallets and identified the scammers. In the end, five suspects were arrested in France, and the police publicly thanked him for his contributions.
In 2022, ZachXBT faced his biggest case. He released a 10-part report revealing the inside story of Machi 'Big Brother'. He linked 21 wallets to $37 million of missing funds. Subsequently, Machi sued him for defamation. The crypto community quickly rallied, raising $1 million for Zach's legal defense. Zach did not back down. In the end, Machi dropped the lawsuit.
ZachXBT continues to dig deeper into investigations. He tracked the North Korean hacker organization Lazarus Group, the mastermind behind the Ronin and Harmony bridge vulnerabilities. He mapped the flow of funds, revealing a path of $200 million through Tornado, ChipMixer, and Asian exchanges. He then shared this information with law enforcement, assisting in the freezing of the relevant funds.
Zach has never worked for any organization, but his investigations have attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies worldwide. The U.S. Secret Service has cited his research, and the French cybercrime unit called him faster than the police. Arkham hired him to reveal the identities of wallet holders. To date, he has assisted in recovering over $435 million in stolen funds, all while remaining anonymous and never appearing in public.
He has exposed several crypto influencers, including BitBoy, Logan Paul, Lark Davis, and Kyle Chasse. Whether they have lawyers or large fan bases, he is undeterred. He tracks phishing gangs, airdrop dumpers, KOL frontrunners, and insiders. Over the past four years, he has published more than 200 investigative reports.
In 2025, Paradigm officially announced that Zach joined the team as an incident response consultant. Co-founder Matt Huang publicly thanked him for recovering over $350 million for victims. Even after four years, Zach still maintains that cartoon platypus avatar and his relentless pursuit of the truth.
ZachXBT has become the industry standard. His investigations have not only changed exchange policies but also assisted in bringing scammers to justice, turning on-chain analysis into a force for good. From exposing scams, he has built one of the most trusted reputations in Web3 step by step.
He is the detective of the crypto world: ZachXBT.
If you want to support ZachXBT's work, here is his donation wallet address:
EVM:
0x9D727911B54C455B0071A7B682FcF4Bc444B5596
SOL: investigations.sol
BTC:
bc1qus70g077qqpue70ldk6grvh3qexvfhu5kn6wv7