Rule one: two independent sources, minimum
No wallet enters the watch list on a single citation. Every label requires at least two independent sources — and "independent" is the working word: two articles quoting the same original claim count as one source. The strongest evidence, in descending order:
- Self-publication — the entity itself lists the address (an exchange's own wallet file, an official filing).
- Court and government documents — indictments, seizure records, bankruptcy filings.
- Peer-scrutinized research — published analysis that survived expert challenge, like the Patoshi work.
- Chain-analysis consensus — multiple independent tracking firms agreeing, weakest of the acceptable tiers.
Every wallet page lists its sources at the bottom. If we can't show you the evidence, we don't ship the label.
Rule two: the chain has the final word
Sources make claims; the ledger settles them. Before a wallet ships we validate every checkable fact on-chain — balances, transaction dates, dormancy windows. This is also where naive labels die: the famous example is Satoshi's fortune, which address-based explorers get structurally wrong because the coins live in early P2PK outputs. Our watch method (sweeping coinbase outputs directly) exists precisely because we validated instead of trusting.
Rule three: confirmed vs attributed — graded, always, visibly
| Grade | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| CONFIRMED | The entity itself published the address, or a court document names it. | Bitfinex cold wallet — on the exchange's own GitHub |
| ATTRIBUTED | Strong multi-source inference, but no self-publication. The UI always says "attributed to". | Satoshi's Fortune — the Patoshi research |
The grade is printed on every card and every alert. We will not silently promote an attribution to a fact — no matter how confident we are, and no matter how much cleaner the headline would read.
Rule four: alerts carry evidence, not conclusions
Every alert we send links the exact transaction or block, so you can verify before you believe — the habit our guide to reading whale alerts is built on. We report what moved and where it landed. We don't tell you what it means for the price, because nobody knows, including us.
Rule five: corrections in public
If a label is wrong, we fix it and say so — on the site and on @usebitcoinapp, plainly, with what changed and why. Spotted an error? Tell us. The fastest way to keep a watchtower honest is to make its mistakes expensive.