Why a block-explorer screenshot is not authentication
It is the most common exhibit in a crypto-fraud file and the weakest one. Not because the underlying transaction is doubtful, but because the image is not connected to it in any way a court can check.
What the image actually establishes
That a browser rendered a page at some moment, on some machine, for someone. Nothing in the file ties those pixels to the ledger. An opponent does not have to allege forgery to get value out of that — it is enough to point out that nothing in the exhibit would look different if it had been edited.
Four separate failures
Integrity: an image has no digest recorded anywhere at the time of capture, so there is nothing to compare it against later. Provenance: no record of who captured it, when, from which URL, or on what device. Completeness: a screenshot is a crop — the transactions above and below the fold, and the ones that came after, are simply absent. Interpretation: the explorer is not the ledger. Token names, decoded amounts, entity labels, and "scam" tags are that explorer's rendering, produced by heuristics that change without notice and are not part of the chain data.
The staleness problem
A screenshot is a claim about a moment, made without a clock the other side can trust. Balances move, later transactions change what the address looks like, and a page captured a year ago may not describe anything about the account today. There is no way to establish from the image alone when it was true.
What to capture instead
Record the identifiers, not the picture of them: the transaction hashes, the addresses, and the chain each belongs to, in text. Capture the underlying data those identifiers resolve to, and digest it at the moment of receipt. Record who supplied it and when. Then keep the screenshot — as an attachment inside that record, describing what the person saw, rather than as the proof of what happened.
What PEGTrace does with the screenshot you already have
It is accepted as an attachment, hashed on receipt, attributed to whoever supplied it, timestamped, and left byte-for-byte intact. It never becomes the proof of the transaction — the identifiers and the ledger data they resolve to do that. But it stops being unverifiable: from that point forward, anyone can confirm the image in the file is the image that was submitted.
What this does not fix
A screenshot of the wrong address, preserved perfectly, is still the wrong address. Recording an item establishes that it has not changed since it was recorded. It does not establish that it was right when it was captured, and nothing in this process claims otherwise.
PEGTrace records and composes evidence. It does not recover funds, determine guilt, or replace an investigator. What a trace produces is a lead, not proof.
This page describes general practice and rules of evidence in plain terms. It is not legal advice, and PEGTrace does not practice law. Counsel decides what is filed, argued, or offered.
Learn about PEGTrace pilots for institutions, counsel, and law enforcement
PEGTrace is an evidence and case-management tool for financial institutions, legal counsel (plaintiff and defense), and law enforcement. These pages are public awareness resources. If you evaluate fraud tooling for an institution, a law firm, or an investigative unit, we would like to talk.