Mastercard’s CipherTrace Used ‘Honeypots’ to Gather Crypto Wallet Intel

Mastercard’s CipherTrace Used ‘Honeypots’ to Gather Crypto Wallet Intel
On March 3, 2020, just before lunchtime in Washington, D.C., Stephen Ryan sent someone at the U.S. Treasury department a thank-you note with a curious detail.The chief operating officer and co-founder of cryptocurrency sleuthing firm CipherTrace, Ryan was one of 16 executives who attended an industry summit the day before with then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Along with his gratitude for the meeting, Ryan attached a slide deck that laid out CipherTrace’s strategy for demystifing crypto wallets. Among those methods: “honey pots.”This article is part of CoinDesk’s Privacy Week series.Ryan’s note was part of a 250-page trove of Mnuchin’s emails obtained…