Commercial or state analysis that clusters addresses and combines public transactions with external identity data.
Chain surveillance is best understood as part of a system rather than as an isolated definition. Its related coordinates show the mechanisms, incentives and historical records that give the term practical meaning.
Chain surveillance should be evaluated against a concrete threat model: what is protected, from whom, for how long and at what operational cost. A design may remove one dependency while introducing another, so custody, privacy and verification must be judged as a complete system.
Understanding Chain surveillance helps distinguish a verifiable Bitcoin mechanism or historical record from slogans, products and market narratives.
For the clearest picture, read this entry together with Address clustering, Know Your Customer, Bitcoin privacy, Common-input ownership heuristic. The reverse links also lead from Common-input ownership heuristic, Address clustering, Ross Ulbricht.
Linked to related atlas coordinates
Grounded in a source record
Explains function and trade-offs
Part of the open Bitcoin knowledge graph