Cryptocurrency Basics for Investigators

Why Join This Course

Cryptocurrency is no longer a niche tool reserved exclusively for sophisticated cyber-syndicates—it routinely surfaces in routine drug distribution, localized fraud, asset concealment, and modern money laundering. This course strips away the complex computer science jargon to give you a clear, practical foundation in how digital assets move. You will learn how to confidently identify crypto indicators in your everyday casework and understand the mechanics of transactions without feeling overwhelmed by the technology.

Why It Matters

When criminals shift their profits into digital wallets, standard financial paper trails go cold. If an investigator doesn’t know how to recognize the physical or digital evidence of a transaction, vital leads are permanently lost. Understanding the fundamentals of the blockchain ensures that you do not miss digital assets during physical searches, misinterpret financial footprints, or fail to secure time-sensitive data that could break a case wide open.

How It Helps Investigations

This training turns a complex technical hurdle into a viable investigative lead. You will learn how to use free, open-source blockchain explorers to track transactions, identify virtual asset service providers (VASPs) like exchanges where legal preservation data requests can be sent, and recognize critical physical artifacts—such as 12-to-24-word seed phrases or hardware wallets—during a search operation. It effectively bridges the gap between traditional policing and modern digital asset recovery.

Who Should Attend

This webinar is tailored for frontline investigators, supervisors, and financial analysts who are increasingly encountering digital currency in their daily workloads:

• Detectives and reactive CID officers
• Financial investigators and counter-fraud teams
• Intelligence analysts and open-source intelligence (OSINT) researchers
• Search team members and digital forensics technicians
• Local policing supervisors managing modern, multi-commodity crime files

Learning Objectives

By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Explain the core components of the blockchain, including the practical operational differences between public keys, private keys, and wallet types (hot vs. cold).
• Identify crypto artifacts during searches, ensuring that seed phrases, private keys, and physical hardware wallets are legally secured without data loss.
• Map basic transaction flows using open-source ledger tools to trace where funds originate, how they are split, and where they are currently held.
• Identify virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to properly direct legal orders, subpoenas, or emergency data preservation requests to secure account-holder identity evidence.