Glossary of Key Terms

Glossary of Key Terms

This glossary collects some of the technical and legal language used throughout the guide so you can quickly check what a term means and why it matters in a pig‑butchering case.

• Pig‑butchering scam. A long‑con crypto investment fraud where scammers “fatten” victims with apparent profits and emotional bonding before blocking withdrawals and draining remaining funds. It combines romance/relationship scams, fake trading platforms, and follow‑on extortion.

• Boiler room. A high‑pressure call‑center environment—often in a scam compound—where workers use scripts and quotas to target victims at scale through chats, calls, and social media. In pig‑butchering, many “individual” scammers are in fact boiler‑room operators.

• Crypto wallet. A software or hardware tool that holds the keys needed to send and receive cryptocurrency. In this guide, “wallet address” usually refers to the public address where funds are sent on‑chain.

• Aggregation / collection wallet. A wallet that receives funds from many individual deposit addresses and consolidates them. Seeing multiple victim deposits flow into the same collection wallet is a strong sign of an organized scam operation.

• On‑chain vs. off‑chain. “On‑chain” activity is recorded directly on a public blockchain (transactions, balances, contract calls). “Off‑chain” refers to everything else—platform databases, chat logs, KYC files—that lawyers and investigators may still need through subpoenas or preservation letters.

• Mixer / tumbler. A service or smart contract that pools cryptocurrency from many users and redistributes it to new addresses to disguise where funds came from. Scammers use mixers to make tracing harder, but patterns in how they use them can still be analyzed.

• Liquidity pool. A shared pot of crypto tokens locked into a DeFi protocol so other users can trade against it; liquidity providers earn fees in return. Scam funds may pass through liquidity pools as part of laundering or cross‑chain moves.

• Bridge / cross‑chain bridge. A tool or protocol that lets users move value from one blockchain to another (for example, from Ethereum to a sidechain). Scammers may bridge stolen funds to chains or exchanges with weaker controls.

• DeFi (decentralized finance). Financial services (trading, lending, yield‑farming) built on smart contracts instead of traditional intermediaries. Many pig‑butchering operations reference DeFi terms to sound sophisticated, even when no real DeFi activity is happening.

• OTC desk. An “over‑the‑counter” trading service that matches large buyers and sellers off public order books. Scam funds that reach OTC desks or exchanges can sometimes be targeted with legal requests if they touch regulated entities.

• KYC (Know Your Customer). Regulatory rules requiring financial platforms to verify customer identity with documents and other data. KYC records at exchanges and brokers are often central to tracing who controlled scam‑related accounts.

• Preservation letter. A formal request asking a platform (such as an exchange or hosting provider) to preserve logs, account data, and related evidence so it is not deleted in the ordinary course of business. Often a first step before subpoenas or court orders.

• Subpoena. A legal order requiring a person or company to provide documents, data, or testimony. In crypto cases, subpoenas can compel exchanges or other intermediaries to turn over KYC records, login histories, and transaction details.

• Temporary restraining order (TRO). A short‑notice, emergency court order designed to maintain the status quo—often by freezing assets or prohibiting transfers—until a fuller hearing can be held. In crypto recovery, TROs may target exchange accounts linked to stolen funds.

• Asset freeze / injunction. A court order that prohibits moving or dissipating certain assets while a case is pending. For pig‑butchering victims, effective freezes can buy time while lawyers and investigators build the broader case.

• Chain‑analysis / blockchain analysis. The process of tracing cryptocurrency movements across wallets, exchanges, mixers, and other services using public ledger data and specialized tools. It helps show where victim funds went and identify points where legal pressure can be applied.

• Bulletproof hosting. Hosting providers or resellers that market themselves—explicitly or implicitly—as resistant to takedowns, law‑enforcement requests, or abuse complaints. Repeat use of the same bulletproof hosts is a common feature of pig‑butchering infrastructure.

• Web3 dApp. A “decentralized application” that interacts directly with a blockchain via a wallet like MetaMask. Some scams use Web3‑style interfaces to appear cutting‑edge while still routing deposits to scam‑controlled wallets.

• Credibility withdrawal. A small, early payout that scammers allow a victim to make from the fake platform. The goal is to prove the platform is “real” and encourage much larger subsequent deposits.