Most Influential: ZachXBT
TL;DR
ZachXBT is crypto's unofficial detective who exposes fraudsters and helps recover stolen funds through meticulous on-chain investigations. His work has become essential reading in the industry and pushes crypto toward greater legitimacy.
Key Takeaways
- •ZachXBT operates as an independent crypto detective, exposing fraudsters and tracing stolen funds without institutional backing.
- •His investigations combine on-chain forensics with a no-nonsense approach that has made him both feared and respected in crypto.
- •Key 2025 revelations included exposing a convicted fraudster whale, linking Monero price surges to hacks, and quantifying $300M annual scam losses on Coinbase.
- •Despite growing influence, he remains focused on investigative work rather than personal fame, helping move crypto from 'wild west' to mainstream.
- •His findings regularly prompt action from exchanges, law enforcement, and projects, with victims crediting him for recovering lost funds.
Tags
In an industry that has produced its fair share of villains, opportunists and rogue insiders, ZachXBT has carved out a rare position: the crypto world’s unofficial detective. Working largely alone and without institutional backing, he has spent years tracing stolen funds, exposing fraudsters and helping scam victims recover millions.
This feature is a part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2025 list.
ZachXBT’s investigations have become essential reading for traders and market watchers alike. His public threads combine meticulous on-chain forensics with a no-nonsense persona that has made him both feared and respected across the crypto space.
In 2025, he again proved why. He revealed that a well-known whale who had been swinging millions on leverage was, in fact, a convicted fraudster. Weeks later, he linked a sudden surge in Monero’s price to a large hack, tracing the flow of tainted funds into privacy pools long before the market caught on. And earlier in the year, he quantified what many suspected but few could measure: Coinbase users alone were losing roughly $300 million annually to sophisticated social-engineering scams.
Despite his growing profile, ZachXBT has stayed grounded in the work. He posts calmly, almost clinically, even when uncovering schemes that have ruined lives. His findings routinely prompt exchanges, law enforcement agencies and project teams to take action. Some victims have credited him with recovering money they had written off entirely; others refer to him simply as crypto’s own Sherlock Holmes.
In a space defined by opacity and self-promotion, ZachXBT’s persistence stands out. He doesn’t chase stardom or celebrity status, but his relentless pursuit of exposing scammers and fraudsters is a major step in crypto moving from a wild west industry to becoming a mainstay in people’s everyday lives.
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
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