Following sale proceeds without counting the same money twice

Begin with a defined accounting question

MASTR’s LAPTOP investigations separate the allocation route, claim-wallet sales and an early buyer’s completed sale record. These are different wallet groups and different questions. Combining their headline numbers before checking the underlying records would obscure how each group acquired its tokens and what the figures measure.

Start a worksheet with the chain, token contract, wallet, observation period and accounting unit. Keep token quantities and payment assets in different columns. A quantity of tokens sent to an address is inventory movement. A stablecoin receipt matched to a sale is a payment event. Neither label, by itself, establishes the recipient’s final profit or the identity of the person controlling the address.

Reconcile the payment asset before assigning a story

The allocation-ledger article records gross USDC receipts, visible outgoing deductions and subsequent uses of the remaining USDC. Its reconciliation includes forwarded funds, a conversion to ETH and tiny unrelated deposits. Including those small deposits matters because the purpose of the equation is to reconcile the recorded balance, not merely produce an attractive rounded headline.

For a hypothetical example, a wallet receives 10,000 USDC from sales, pays 20 USDC in visible routing costs, forwards 9,000 USDC and converts 980 USDC to ETH. Its USDC balance closes at zero. The ETH and forwarded USDC are uses of the original 9,980 USDC net receipt. Adding them to the sale receipts as fresh earnings would count the same proceeds again. This example illustrates the method; its numbers are not figures from the LAPTOP investigation.

Check whether a fee was already excluded

In the claim-wallet article, one routing payment did not reach the subject wallet. The stated receipt already excludes it. Subtracting it a second time would make the reported result too low. This is the reverse of double-counting income: double-counting a deduction.

Before subtracting a cost, locate it in the transaction and identify the balance on which the displayed figure is based. Is the number the gross output from a route, the amount sent to the subject wallet or the change in that wallet’s balance? A block explorer’s transfer list and a trade interface’s headline can describe different stages of the same transaction. Label the measurement before comparing figures.

A funding link supports a specific conclusion

The two claim-wallet records include a direct ETH funding transfer before the second wallet’s claim. That establishes a visible financial connection. It does not independently identify a common beneficial owner, demonstrate unlawful eligibility or prove that the wallets acted on inside information. The original article keeps those questions separate.

An investigation should preserve alternative explanations until evidence resolves them. A payment might fund a colleague’s transaction, settle a debt or move funds between accounts controlled by one person. Those possibilities are not findings about this case. They explain why naming an owner requires more than observing one transfer. Keep address-level observations, attribution evidence and legal characterisations in separate parts of a report.

Build a report someone else can check

For each material claim, provide the transaction reference, the relevant addresses, the event or balance change being measured and the cutoff time. Preserve exact token decimals in the working ledger even when the article uses a rounded headline. Explain exclusions and reconcile subtotals before comparing them with the final total.

Finish with unresolved questions. Offchain acquisition agreements, borrowing costs, taxes and hedges may be absent from the public record. A report can establish sale receipts without establishing after-cost profit. This guide explains how to read the published MASTR cases; it does not add new wallet allegations. The linked originals remain the source for the transaction-level findings.