Hi again,

Got some PM requests for clarifying legal issues etc. Your guess is as good as mine, but I think it is important to stress a few facts first:

1. Me explaining to coindesk/insidesbitcoins what Chainalysis do in general (Compliance, Investigations etc) has nothing to do with the nodes - we are not using transaction to IP mapping for anything but statistical research - aka the blog post already mentioned. This fact is, as I see it, highly relevant if we start to discuss any possible legal issues.

2. Claiming that Chainalysis should do anything illegal based on other nodes connecting to our nodes relaying INVs is highly speculative. I cannot see any difference btw that and connecting to any other service (HTTP/DNS etc) and recording that info for statistical purposes. Further, take e.g. blockchain.info where any first posted INVs are recorded and shared with all future users. How is our statistical analysis different from that ? And note even here that Chainalysis are not and have not any intention to share privacy sensitive info (IP numbers).

3. General legal considerations - I am by no means an expert on this - but this is a relevant discussion - when are you (illegally) eavesdropping by participating in a p2p network ? What are you allowed to do with the data/metadata (e.g. INVs and TXs) you receive ? What can you as a p2p user (legally) expect them to be used for ? Do we actually expect any regulation to cover here at all ?

Cheers,

Michael