Automated Attribution of Unknown Cryptocurrency Wallets to Nearest Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) through Blockchain Intelligence APIs
Ministry of Home Affairs · Blockchain & Cybersecurity · Software
Real, precisely specified and demoable on public chain data, but attribution accuracy is bounded by the VASP label set that commercial tools sell — assemble the best open labels you can, handle mixers honestly, and be clear how this differs from its sibling SIH26183.
What it actually is
When police trace crypto used in fraud or ransomware, the suspect wallet is often unhosted and they cannot tell which exchange it connects to — which they need in order to send a lawful disclosure request. The ask is a system that automatically traces a suspect wallet's transactions across chains to find the nearest exchange or custodial service that accepts direct deposits from it.
What to build
A blockchain-tracing engine, integrated with the SAHYOG portal by API, that takes a suspect wallet address and traces its transaction paths to identify the nearest centralised exchange, custodial wallet service or VASP receiving direct deposits from it, mapping deposit addresses and fund flows across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, BNB Chain, Solana, Polygon and other major chains, using exchange-cluster and hot-wallet labelling to recognise when funds have reached a known VASP, and surfacing the shortest path from suspect to exchange so an investigator can direct a disclosure request to the right provider.
Smallest thing that wins the room
Enter a suspect wallet address and show the engine tracing its outflows hop by hop until they reach a labelled exchange deposit address, displaying the transaction path and naming the nearest VASP an investigator should send a disclosure request to.
How crowded this one gets
A guess, projected from the 2025 statements — the last year where both the submission counts and the winners were published.
Quieter than 80% of the 226 · #47 of 226 by expected field
Few teams are likely to go here. The best odds on the board come from statements like this.
Why: defence, intelligence and space bodies drew small fields.
This is a guess, not a fact
Nobody has published 2026’s numbers yet. This is an analysed estimate from last year’s pattern, so please do not take it as the truth — check the live counter on the SIH portal before you decide anything. The range covers the middle half of likely outcomes, so one statement in two lands outside it. Entry closes at 500 ideas per statement, so no range goes past that — a statement that reaches the cap fills and shuts rather than drawing an unlimited crowd. The model reads only three things a team can see before choosing — software or hardware, the theme, and what kind of body posted it — and those explain about a quarter of the variation in last year’s field sizes (R² 0.25 on held-out statements). Trust the band more than the number, and the ordering more than either. It cannot see how good your idea is, which is the part that actually decides it.
The scores
The number is the shorthand. The line under it is the reason.
Acceptance potential
3/5The problem is real and the specification is precise, but commercial tools like Chainalysis already do this and the core dependency is a VASP deposit-address label set that is exactly what those companies sell — so your attribution accuracy is bounded by the sparse public labels you can assemble, which a judge will probe.
Feasibility
3/5Blockchain data is fully public and traceable and exchange-wallet clustering is a documented technique, but the accuracy hinges on a labelled dataset of exchange and VASP deposit addresses — commercial services sell exactly this and open labels are sparse, so your attribution coverage depends on how good a public or self-built label set you can assemble.
Innovation scope
3/5Blockchain tracing and exchange clustering are established, so your room is in the multi-chain coverage, the nearest-VASP path logic and the labelling quality rather than in the concept, and commercial tools already do this well.
Clarity
5/5The description defines the investigative context, the exact output — nearest exchange or VASP accepting direct deposits — the specific chains to support and the SAHYOG integration, making the requirement precise.
Effort
MassiveMulti-chain transaction ingestion and tracing, exchange-cluster labelling, the nearest-VASP path logic and the portal integration is a large multi-chain data-engineering effort.
Demo-ability
EasyTracing a wallet's funds along a path until they hit a named exchange is a concrete, investigative-looking demo that reads clearly to any judge.
In its favour
- Green flag: Blockchain data is fully public, so the transaction tracing runs on real on-chain data with no access barrier
- Green flag: Tracing funds to a named exchange is a concrete, investigative demo that a law-enforcement judge immediately values
- Green flag: Exchange-cluster labelling is a documented technique with open label sets like those from the WalletExplorer lineage to start from
- Green flag: The SAHYOG integration and clear output make the operational fit and value unambiguous
Against it
- Red flag: The accuracy depends entirely on a VASP deposit-address label set, and good labels are exactly what commercial services sell, so open coverage is sparse and your attribution will have gaps
- Red flag: Commercial tools like Chainalysis already solve this, so a judge will ask what a student build adds beyond a thinner version
- Red flag: Mixers, bridges and privacy chains break the trace, and the description's own laundering context means the hard cases defeat naive tracing
- Red flag: It overlaps SIH26183 from the same ministry heavily, so be ready to explain the distinction
What you will be writing
- Multi-chain transaction tracing (Bitcoin, EVM, Tron, Solana)
- Exchange-cluster and hot-wallet labelling
- Blockchain intelligence APIs / node RPC
- Nearest-VASP shortest-path graph analysis
- Deposit-address clustering heuristics
- SAHYOG API integration
- Blockchain forensics
- Cryptocurrency investigation
- Financial crime
Prior art to read before you start
wallet-to-exchange attribution · multi-chain fund tracing · VASP deposit-address identification
Analysed by Claude Opus. Every score above is a judgment call with its reasoning attached — kindly cross-check this against the official statement on the SIH portal before your team commits to it.