Searching your Bitcoin wallet can put your IP address in Chainalysis’ hands
Hosted Bitcoin block explorers can collect off-chain metadata when a user searches a public address or transaction ID. A warning on X claimed explorers log IPs and share them with analytics/law-enforcement firms, but the actual privacy risk depends on operator policies and practices. Published policies show wide variation. WalletExplorer explicitly records IPs and requested URLs, shares visitor data within Chainalysis, and allows disclosure under legal process. mempool.space says nginx logs collect IPs and requests. Blockchair notes that a browser sends an IP and the requested page. Etherscan, Blockchain.com, and OKLink describe data collection more broadly, with differing retention rules. Etherscan distinguishes short raw-log retention from longer personal-data retention; Blockchain.com and OKLink use purpose-based retention language. Across these services, legal-disclosure clauses are common, but only WalletExplorer clearly documents internal sharing with Chainalysis. A search query can reveal that a connection looked up a specific address at a specific time, but it does not prove ownership without corroborating evidence.
