What is an exchange account?¶

A cryptocurrency exchange account is an online account used to buy, sell, hold, convert, deposit or withdraw digital assets.

Avoid the dangerous assumption¶

The dangerous assumption is that it is simply a bank account for cryptocurrency or that the registered customer personally controlled every transaction.

The exchange may hold cryptocurrency and private keys on behalf of customers.

Customer balances and trades may be recorded internally.

A purchase, sale or transfer between exchange users may therefore occur without a separate public blockchain transaction.

Relevant records may include customer identity information, account IDs, email addresses, phone numbers, linked bank accounts, cards, deposits, trades, withdrawals, devices, IP addresses, sessions and authentication events.

The exchange may assign deposit addresses and use different operational addresses for withdrawals.

A blockchain address linked to the exchange does not automatically identify one customer.

The provider must map the blockchain transaction to the internal account.

An exchange account may be active on several devices or controlled by another person using stolen credentials or an existing session.

Preserve the exchange name, account identifier, user ID, transaction references, deposit and withdrawal addresses, asset, network and timestamps.

Ask the exchange to distinguish internal trades, internal transfers, deposits and blockchain withdrawals.

Do not rely only on screenshots of balances or trade history.

Provider exports and underlying records may contain more complete evidence.

When reporting, distinguish the exchange customer account, provider-controlled wallets, blockchain transactions and actual user.

Operational takeaway¶

Treat an exchange account as a provider-held cryptocurrency account and obtain complete identity, access, trade, deposit and withdrawal records for tracing and attribution.