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Blockchain Analytics and Forensics

Software that traces cross-chain fund flows, attributes wallets to illicit activity, and produces forensic evidence for investigations.

Current stories

investOne report1 publisher

Global Ledger traces 90.9% of flagged exchange inflows to 10 of 99 venues

Global Ledger counts $187.75 billion of high-risk exposure across 99 crypto exchanges from 2021 to 2025, in a report shared with crypto.news. Measured as a share of deposits, the ten biggest venues differ widely.

Publishers:crypto.news

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
investConfirmed7 publishers

Britain sanctions five crypto platforms a week after Washington blacklisted Russia's A7 network

Britain sanctioned three crypto exchanges and two payment platforms on Oct. 8, two of them suspected of handling transactions for Russia's A7 network. Washington blocked A7 a week earlier and Brussels barred dealings with 14 crypto platforms in July, so firms near these rails now answer to three overlapping regimes.

Perspective Coverage

7 publishers
Builder
Builder 19%
Operator
Operator 55%
Investor
Investor 26%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives40
Confidence68
investOne report1 publisher

ACAMS redesigns crypto crime certification, adding Chainalysis content to updated blockchain course

ACAMS is rebuilding its crypto anti-financial-crime certification around Chainalysis material ahead of a Nov. 19 launch. Chainalysis's chief executive says the skills matter only with data and tools to match, so a training budget likely brings a tooling bill.

Publishers:crypto.news

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives75
Confidence45
investOne report1 publisher

Stablecoin payments reached $401 billion to $527 billion through August, Allium estimates

Allium estimates stablecoins carried $401 billion to $527 billion of payments in 2026's first eight months, far below public-chain transfer totals. That range is a sounder base for valuing a stablecoin payments business, though it covers a different period and market from the 2025 cross-border share and cannot be divided into it.

Publishers:crypto.news

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption35
Hype gap+5
Incentives50
Confidence55
investConfirmed3 publishers

Issuers and protocols have frozen about 0.2% of the $387 million taken from Bitget

Chainalysis tied the $387 million Bitget hack to North Korea-linked hackers, saying it pushed their 2026 crypto theft past $1 billion. Its AI cut more than 20 hours of tracing to minutes, while the bill falls on a Bitget user fund the exchange puts above $464 million.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 32%
Operator
Operator 41%
Investor
Investor 27%

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption25
Hype gap+35
Incentives60
Confidence65
investConfirmed4 publishers

Chainalysis sues DHS and ICE, and the real target is sole-source procurement

Chainalysis Government Solutions filed at the Court of Federal Claims on August 17 over a sole-source blockchain forensics award to TRM Labs. The contract's value has not been disclosed.

Perspective Coverage

4 publishers
Builder
Builder 16%
Operator
Operator 44%
Investor
Investor 40%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption58
Hype gap−15
Incentives75
Confidence66
securityOne report1 publisher

Telegram deletes Xinbi Guarantee channels, likely in response to US sanctions after $52.8m wallet freeze

Elliptic and the US Secret Service froze 52 wallets holding $52.8 million in USDT on September 8. US sanctions followed a day later, Telegram deleted the channels the same day, and Xinbi says it is moving to a stablecoin nobody can freeze.

Publishers:elliptic.co

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption70
Hype gap+20
Incentives78
Confidence57
investOne report1 publisher

Cutting A7A5's route into liquid stablecoins took its daily volume down 96%

Leaked files put $6.9 billion of the Kremlin-linked A7 network's money through correspondent banks, while TRM counts $166 billion of A7-linked crypto volume. After the sanctions, the daily turnover of its ruble token fell 96%.

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption61
Hype gap+14
Incentives72
Confidence52
buildOne report1 publisher

Three failed lookups at 8-wide made DEGEN's warm map disagree with its cold one

Doubling the worker pool against Nansen's API bought 5.8 seconds of median wall clock across four tokens and cost three calls in 441. Holder Atlas's defaults are back at 4-wide under 5 requests per second.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence64
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap0
Incentives45
Confidence58
investOne report1 publisher

Chainalysis puts state hackers behind two of every three blockchain dead drops

Chainalysis says writes of malware instructions to public blockchains have climbed from about 2.06 a day to 11.1 since July 2025, with groups tied to North Korea and Iran behind most of the increase. Its research lead could not confirm AI models helped.

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption48
Hype gap+30
Incentives68
Confidence40
investOne report1 publisher

TRM screens out $27 million of x402's $52.7 million before counting any agents

TRM Labs put 198.9 million x402 settlements through a filter for self-payments and thin sellers. $25.62 million survived. Agents got 0.6% to 7.5% of that, on a model TRM says may understate them.

Publishers:decrypt.co

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption40
Hype gap+45
Incentives68
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Iran's exporters swapped a state exchange rate for Tether's freeze button

Tehran's tolerance of crypto export settlement is attested only by unnamed sources. Tether's $344m freeze in April 2026 is documented exactly, and it sits against $9.9bn of attributed 2025 volume that fell 13%.

Publishers:crypto.news

Reality

Evidence46
Adoption58
Hype gap+20
Incentives62
Confidence44
investOne report1 publisher

CARF's 14 percent: Chainalysis puts $393B of taxable crypto outside the OECD's net

The framework reaches the volume that already runs through exchanges. The remainder is about six times larger, and the firm that sized it sells the alternative.

Reality

Evidence32
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+28
Incentives82
Confidence38