Jonathan Levin comes across as an Oxford scholar with his beard, spectacles, and plummy English accent. And indeed that’s what he was when the conversation in the pub one night turned to Bitcoin and, before long, drew him into a world of cops, hit men, and a global web of cybercrime. Today, Levin is the CEO of Chainalysis, one of the world’s preeminent crypto forensic firms, whose origins he shared on the latest episode of Fortune’s Crypto Playbook podcast.
When Levin cofounded Chainalysis in 2014, most people still hadn’t heard of Bitcoin and far fewer understood the workings of a blockchain. That included nearly everyone in law enforcement. That began to change, however, when special agents began investigating so-called dark-web sites where a wide variety of illicit goods and services could be bought and paid for using Bitcoin.
