On January 10, 2025, a netizen exposed a screenshot of the chat record of a Telegram group, in which the content of the exchange was about a Blockchain-based collateral transaction targeting Wang Xing, and the publisher claimed that the chat record occurred before the Wang Xing incident, which aroused heated discussion among netizens.

Some researchers believe that the chat record is forged and that the transaction does not exist, but Bitrace found through Blockchain fund analysis that the on-chain transaction corresponding to the chat record does exist and is not completely forged.

Chat Record Analysis

Bitrace has long investigated cryptocurrency-related crime cases in Southeast Asia and is familiar with the local cryptocurrency crime landscape. Based on the business logic of the collateral transaction, we have re-sorted all the information appearing in the chat record:

Chat Location

After the collateral platform customer service matches the buyer and seller in the advertisement area or trading group, they will establish a dedicated transaction group for the three parties to communicate. The chat screenshot is from this dedicated transaction group.

Screenshot Taker

There are six people in the group chat, five of whom made statements, all of whom are the buyer and seller. This indicates that if the screenshot is genuine, the screenshot taker is the group chat creator, i.e., the collateral platform customer service.

Timeline

At 02:31 on the same day, the buyer and seller began to communicate about the deposit

At 02:32 on the same day, the seller claimed that "the person has got on the car"

At 02:41 on the same day, the two parties began to evaluate the transaction target "Wang Xing", but the victim's photo posted in the screenshot was published the previous day at 19:46

At 03:08 on the same day, both parties acknowledged that the deposit had arrived

At 03:10 on the same day, the group name was modified, indicating the transaction was successful

At 03:12 on the same day, the chat record ended

Blockchain Analysis

Based on the collateral platform's fund activity model, Bitrace conducted a detailed cryptocurrency fund analysis on the Blockchain address TAiv3g mentioned in the image:

According to the BitracePro Blockchain fund analysis canvas, we did not find a transfer record of 14,000 USDT on January 3, the day Wang Xing was reported missing.

However, after traversing the transaction records of TAiv3g, we successfully found a receipt transaction of 13,928 USDT, which occurred at 03:08 on November 19, 2024, consistent with the deposit arrival time in the aforementioned timeline.

After expanding the transactions around that time point of TAiv3g, we found the suspected buyer address TFAbPj, which is a user address of a known cryptocurrency payment platform, and the funds flowed into the business address of that payment company.

Such activities have occurred more than once on this collateral platform, and the canvas shows that at least 10 user addresses of this payment tool are also participants in the collateral transactions, with amounts ranging from 7,000 to 80,000 USDT, and the transaction content is unclear.

True and False

The chat record screenshot contains multiple contradictions, indicating that the transaction presented in this chat record is actually unrelated to Wang Xing:

1/ Wang Xing went missing on January 3, but there was no 14,000 USDT transfer on that day at the address;

2/ The photo posting time in the chat record is incorrect and should be a later forgery.

Based on Bitrace's intelligence library, we have also found more useful information, proving that this chat record is also real:

1/ According to our previous address tagging, the entity to which TAiv3g belongs is a collateral trading platform, and open-source network intelligence shows that the platform is indeed engaged in "overseas labor" related business;

2/ The collateral platform has a deep financial association with another cryptocurrency payment platform;

3/ On November 19, 2024 at 03:08, TAiv3g received a 13,928 USDT deposit, the time and amount of which are consistent with the content of the screenshot.

Therefore, this chat record is half true and half false. The original informant, based on the real collateral trading scenario and others' information, fabricated the so-called chat record of Wang Xing being traded and released it on the Chinese Internet, with unclear motives behind it.

Conclusion

There is no direct on-chain evidence that actor Wang Xing was sold through the cryptocurrency collateral trading platform on January 3, 2025, as the photos and names of Wang Xing in the chat record are forged. However, the collateral trading activity described in the chat record did exist on-chain on November 19, 2024, indicating that this dedicated group did conduct a transaction of 14,000 USDT on that day.

But if this chat record is not about Wang Xing being traded on January 3, 2025, then which "person" or "thing" was involved in the 14,000 USDT transaction on November 19, 2024?

Chilling.

----

Appendix: What is a Blockchain-based Collateral Trading Platform

The so-called collateral platform is essentially a transaction intermediary, aimed at helping the trading parties establish trust and prevent transaction fraud. The platforms we commonly use, such as Xianyu and Alipay, are actually tools of this type.

In the black and gray industry transactions, the parties engaged in illegal activities also need collateral services to establish trust, and the institutions that provide collateral services for black and gray industry transactions currently generally use the US dollar stablecoin USDT, so we can see a Blockchain address in the screenshot.

This address is the Blockchain address where the collateral platform collects the transaction deposit from the buyer, and the buyer's transfer behavior is called "deposit", and the behavior of getting the same amount of transfer from the deposit address after the transaction is completed is called "withdrawal".

In this way, the collateral platform provides a guarantee for various risky trading activities. And in Southeast Asia, there are large and small collateral platforms operating, whose businesses are mixed, and they not only help with fraud, gambling fund laundering and other illegal activities, but also provide services for human trafficking, drug transactions and other criminal activities.