Crypto is often described as radically transparent. Every transaction is public, every movement traceable, every action immutable. Yet despite this openness, fraud continues to thrive—often hidden not by secrecy, but by complexity.

As blockchain ecosystems have expanded across multiple networks, layers, and bridges, the challenge has shifted from visibility to interpretation. Knowing where money moves is no longer enough. Understanding why it moves—and who ultimately controls it—has become the real differentiator.

Few people operate at that intersection as closely as Ali Sina Mohaghegh, a Dutch entrepreneur and blockchain investigator whose work focuses on uncovering how crypto scams actually function beneath the surface.

From Public Ledgers To Forensic Insight

Mohaghegh’s work centers on on-chain investigation: the systematic analysis of blockchain data to reconstruct financial behavior. Unlike traditional fraud analysis, this discipline relies entirely on public records—transaction hashes, smart-contract calls, approvals, and wallet interactions.

What distinguishes meaningful research from casual blockchain browsing is methodology. Scams rarely reveal themselves through a single transaction. Instead, they emerge through patterns: repeated approvals, clustered wallets, synchronized liquidity events, and coordinated cash-out routes.

“Blockchain data is objective,” Mohaghegh explains. “But conclusions are not. You need economic reasoning, technical literacy, and patience to separate coincidence from intent.”

Why Exchanges Can’t Afford To Ignore On-Chain Research

As co-owner and marketing lead of crypto exchange Bitdenex, Mohaghegh experiences these risks firsthand. An exchange is not merely a trading venue—it is a gateway into a highly adversarial environment.

Scams today are rarely confined to a single network. Funds may originate on Ethereum, pass through Layer-2 solutions, cross bridges into Solana or BNB Chain, and briefly move through wrapped assets or low-liquidity tokens before disappearing into mixers or centralized off-ramps.

Without internal expertise in on-chain analysis, exchanges are forced to react after damage is done.

“Fraud detection can’t start at the withdrawal stage,” Mohaghegh notes. “It has to begin with understanding how malicious structures are built in the first place.”

The Mechanics Behind Modern Crypto Scams

While tactics evolve, certain technical mechanisms recur across many investigations:

• Token approvals and NFT permissions that quietly grant full access to assets
• Signature-based drains, where users unknowingly authorize transfers
• Prebuilt ‘drainer-as-a-service’ tools lowering the barrier to entry for scammers
• Liquidity manipulation, followed by rapid fragmentation of funds
• Cross-chain laundering, designed to overwhelm manual tracking

To analyze these behaviors, Mohaghegh uses block explorers such as Etherscan and Solscan, combined with address-intelligence platforms like Arkham and Nansen. Wallets are clustered based on shared funding sources, identical contract interactions, and repeated behavioral signatures.

Every finding is documented with transaction hashes, timestamps, and contract calls—ensuring conclusions are reproducible, not speculative.

Economics Matters As Much As Code

Mohaghegh’s approach is shaped by his background in fiscal economics, studied at Rotterdam School of Management, alongside formal training in blockchain research at the McAfee Institute. That combination allows him to evaluate scams not just technically, but economically.

Fraud is rarely accidental. Incentives, timing, marketing narratives, and exit routes are all part of the design.

This perspective has proven valuable in analyzing international cases involving large-scale scams operating across jurisdictions, including investigations that later gained broader visibility through independent journalists and platforms such as Coffeezilla.

Why Approvals Are The Hidden Risk

One of the most underestimated dangers in crypto lies in approvals and signatures. Unlike private keys, these actions often feel harmless. In reality, they can silently transfer control.

A single blind signature can authorize a contract to drain assets indefinitely.

“Users don’t lose funds because cryptography fails,” Mohaghegh says. “They lose funds because they don’t fully understand what they’re consenting to.”

This is why operational security—hardware wallets, permission hygiene, and routine revocation—remains critical, even for experienced participants.

Education As Infrastructure

Through his firm Netzach & Co, Mohaghegh focuses on training and education in the Netherlands, helping professionals, investors, and younger participants learn how on-chain research works in practice.

The emphasis is not on fear, but on fluency: how to read transaction data, recognize structural red flags, and understand when complexity is being used as camouflage.

In cases of suspected fraud, he is also consulted to provide factual clarity—not to assign blame, but to reconstruct what objectively occurred.

A Maturing Market Requires Accountability

As crypto continues to professionalize, transparency alone is no longer sufficient. Accountability requires interpretation, context, and expertise.

On-chain research fills that gap.

For exchanges, investors, and builders alike, the message is clear: the blockchain already contains the evidence. The challenge is knowing how to read it.

In an industry defined by irreversible transactions, understanding behavior may be as important as understanding code.