Key Highlights
- Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is procuring a blockchain analytics platform to oversee the country’s regulated crypto market.
- The system follows the implementation of the Virtual Assets Service Providers Act, 2025.
- The CMA plans to monitor transactions across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more than 20 blockchain networks.
Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is preparing to acquire a blockchain analytics platform as the country moves from regulating virtual assets on paper to actively supervising the market under its newly enacted crypto framework.
According to a local report, the proposed system will help the CMA monitor digital asset transactions, investigate suspicious activity, and enforce compliance under the Virtual Assets Service Providers Act, 2025, which brought cryptocurrency businesses under regulatory oversight.
The initiative marks one of the regulator’s first major steps toward technology-driven enforcement following the introduction of legislation governing the virtual asset sector.
Regulator targets crypto crime and illicit transactions
The CMA said the platform is intended to improve visibility into virtual asset markets and assist investigators in detecting financial crimes involving cryptocurrencies.
According to the tender documents, the system will support investigations into money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud and market manipulation, sanctions evasion, ransomware-related transactions, and other forms of illicit crypto activity.
The regulator plans to monitor activity across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and at least 20 additional blockchain networks, with both real-time monitoring and historical transaction analysis.
How the new system would work
Beyond transaction monitoring, the proposed platform will provide investigators with blockchain forensic capabilities designed to trace the movement of digital assets across multiple networks.
The system will include tools for wallet relationship mapping, transaction timeline reconstruction, fund-flow analysis, and cross-chain asset tracing. It will also support wallet attribution linked to exchanges, DeFi protocols, OTC trading desks, gambling platforms, scam wallets, sanctioned entities, and suspected criminal networks.
The platform is expected to generate alerts for high-risk wallets, unusually large transfers, cryptocurrency mixers, darknet-linked addresses, sanctioned entities, and transactions involving jurisdictions considered high risk.
Investigators will be able to continuously monitor flagged wallet addresses and receive notifications whenever those wallets initiate new blockchain transactions.
Tracking crime on-chain
The CMA also plans to improve anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing oversight through automated sanctions screening. The platform will compare blockchain transactions against international sanctions databases, including those maintained by the United Nations and the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
The system will also assign risk scores to wallets and transactions based on indicators such as suspected fraud, money laundering, ransomware activity, terrorism financing, and sanctions exposure. This would allow investigators to prioritize higher-risk cases.
Kenya expands crypto oversight
The blockchain analytics initiative builds on Kenya’s broader push to regulate its rapidly growing digital asset sector following the passage of the Virtual Assets Service Providers Act, 2025. Earlier this year, Kenyan authorities proposed mandatory wallet identification and transaction reporting requirements to improve tax compliance, reduce anonymity, and strengthen oversight of crypto transactions.
The CMA’s latest move takes that effort by investing in blockchain intelligence tools to monitor on-chain activity, supervise licensed virtual asset service providers, identify unauthorized offshore platforms serving Kenyan users, and investigate suspicious transactions.
The approach reflects a wider global trend, with regulators in regions including the United States, the European Union, Singapore, and India increasingly using blockchain analytics tools to investigate money laundering, sanctions evasion, ransomware financing, and other crypto-related financial crimes.
As Kenya implements its virtual asset framework, the adoption of blockchain surveillance tools signals a shift toward more active oversight of the country’s cryptocurrency market.
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