NAIROBI, Kenya, July 7 – The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is seeking to acquire an advanced blockchain analytics platform to strengthen oversight of Kenya’s virtual assets market following the enactment of the country’s cryptocurrency regulatory framework.
The proposed system is intended to enhance the regulator’s ability to monitor digital asset transactions, investigate suspicious activities and enforce compliance under the Virtual Assets Service Providers Act, 2025.
According to tender documents, the platform will support the licensing and supervision of virtual asset exchanges, brokers, asset managers, investment advisers and other entities regulated under the new law.
CMA said the technology will improve visibility into virtual asset markets while strengthening its capacity to detect fraud, market manipulation, money laundering, terrorism financing, sanctions evasion and other illicit financial activities.
The regulator is seeking a system capable of monitoring transactions across Bitcoin, Ethereum and at least 20 other blockchain networks in both real time and retrospectively.
The platform will generate automated alerts for suspicious transactions, high-risk wallets, unusually large transfers, sanctioned entities, cryptocurrency mixers, darknet-linked addresses and transactions involving high-risk jurisdictions.
Investigators will also be able to monitor flagged wallet addresses and receive instant notifications whenever those wallets initiate new transactions.
The system is expected to include advanced investigative tools such as wallet relationship mapping, transaction timeline reconstruction, fund-flow analysis and cross-chain tracing to follow assets as they move across different blockchain networks.
It will also enable wallet attribution by linking blockchain addresses to known cryptocurrency exchanges, decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols, over-the-counter trading desks, gambling platforms, scam wallets, sanctioned entities and suspected criminal networks.
In addition, the platform will assign automated risk scores to wallets and transactions based on indicators such as money laundering, fraud, ransomware, terrorism financing and sanctions exposure, helping the regulator prioritise investigations.
CMA also intends to use the system to strengthen anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing supervision by screening transactions against international sanctions lists, including those maintained by the United Nations and the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
The regulator said the platform will also improve oversight of cryptocurrency activity within Kenya by mapping virtual asset flows, identifying exchanges commonly used by Kenyan residents and detecting unlicensed offshore platforms serving the local market.
