How to Trace the Historical Projects of a Contract Deployer
The core idea is reverse tracing: start from a known contract address, find out who deployed it, then pull up all contracts created by that deployer. No technical background is required; you can do this with a block explorer and public tools. Most project information can be reconstructed this way.
Step 1: Find the Contract Creator in a Block Explorer
What to do: Take the contract address of the project you want to investigate, and check who deployed it on Etherscan or BscScan.
How to do it:
Go to Eth erscan (Ethereum) or BscScan (BNB Chain), enter the contract address in the search box.
On the contract details page, locate the "Contract Creator" field, and click the corresponding wallet address. That address is the wallet that originally deployed the contract.
The block explorer's API also provides a dedicated function to query the contract creator; the latest result is displayed directly on the page.
Completion criteria: You have obtained the wallet address (a string starting with 0x) that deployed this contract, not the project's publicly known multi-signature wallet.
Step 2: Set the Deployer's Wallet Address as the Tracking Target
What to do: After finding the deployer's wallet, review its historical outgoing transactions and filter out the ones that created contracts.
How to do it:
On the same block explorer's address detail page, switch to the "Transactions" tab.
In the transaction list, look for records labeled "Contract Creation" or showing "To: [Contract Created]". These transactions are evidence that the wallet has deployed other contracts.
If this wallet has deployed multiple projects, these records will be listed in chronological order.
Completion criteria: You have confirmed the number of contract creation records for this deployer wallet and identified the specific historical projects you need to examine.
Step 3: Use Advanced Tools to Batch-Track Cross-Chain Projects (Optional)
What to do: If you suspect the deployer operates cross-chain (e.g., deploying projects on both ETH and BSC), you can use community-provided open-source tracking tools.
How to do it:
On GitHub, there are open-source tools designed for security research, such as Multichain Scam Deployer Graph, which can pull all contract creation records of a deployer across multiple chains via an API, generate a graph with nodes and edges, and provide a risk score.
Such tools require basic technical skills. For example, they detect whether the deployer created a large number of unverified ERC-20 token contracts in a short period, or used the same address on multiple chains, to help assess whether it is a high-risk deployer.
Completion criteria: You have obtained a complete list of the deployer's projects on multiple chains, or confirmed that there is no cross-chain activity.
Step 4: Interpret Contract Creation Records — Assess the Quality of Historical Projects
What to do: After obtaining the list of the deployer's historical projects, determine whether they are benign ecosystem projects or potentially risky ones.
How to do it:
Click into each historical contract and check the total token supply, token distribution, and whether the contract source code is verified. If multiple tokens have highly similar supply/distribution patterns, they may have been generated from the same factory pattern.
Observe deployment time intervals: If the same address deploys many contracts consecutively within a short period, that is a characteristic of risky behavior.
Completion criteria: You have a preliminary assessment of the nature of the deployer's historical projects — whether it is a development team worth watching or a suspicious batch deployer.
Prerequisites
Before you start tracing, make sure you have the contract address of the project to investigate. If the project has contracts on multiple chains, it is recommended to start with the most mainstream chain (like Ethereum or BNB Chain), as block explorer data formats are largely consistent across chains.
Common Reasons for Failure
Only checking a single chain's transaction history: Many deployers operate on multiple chains (e.g., Ethereum, BNB Chain, Base); checking only one chain may miss many historical projects. Switch networks or use multi-chain tools to get a complete picture.
Mistaking the project's publicly known operational wallet for the deployer wallet: Some projects disclose a "multi-sig wallet" address, but the wallet that deploys contracts is usually a different one. You must use the contract address to precisely query the "Creator".
Assuming the deployer only uses one wallet: Some deployers prepare multiple wallets in advance to decentralize operations; the search history of a single wallet may not cover the full picture.
Risk Reminder
Account risk: Queries on block explorers are read-only and do not involve authorizations or fund operations, so they are risk-free. However, do not click on unfamiliar links or suspicious contract addresses found in the deployer wallet's transaction records.
Fund risk: The quality of the deployer's historical projects is for reference only and should not be used as investment basis. Even if an address deployed well-known projects, it does not guarantee that a new project is safe or reliable.
Signs that you have completed the process correctly: You successfully located the deployer wallet in the block explorer's "Contract Creator" field and found at least one historical contract creation record in that wallet's transactions. If cross-chain tracing was needed, you confirmed whether the deployer exhibited the same behavior on other chains. Next steps: If you find that the deployer has created multiple projects flagged as "high-risk" or unverified, remain cautious about the project under investigation. Continuously monitor the deployer wallet for new transactions, and set up monitoring tools to receive real-time notifications.
