Chainalysis, a New York-based blockchain analysis company, announced that it had raised a further $16Mn, as well as revealed their competitor knock-out real time analytics tool they've dubbed as Know-Your-Transactions (KYT). Chainalysis is the first company that focused solely on Bitcoin compliance for regulatory obligations such as anti-money laundering (AML). The company developed investigation software that tracks and analyzes the Bitcoin blockchain and determines the source and destination of each transaction. Their analysis allowed banks, such as Barclays, one of their clients, to comply with regulations in the case it wished to provide banking services to cryptocurrency operations, such as Coinbase - who recently revealed a partnership with the bank. Previously, blockchain analysis was done retrospectively but the new tool will now provide feedback on the underlying purpose of transactions, which can detect risky customers and suspicious activity in real-time.

Public records indicate that the US government entities have entered Purchase Orders (PO) with Chainalysis to the cool tune of $1,500,000 from 2015 to date. Blockchain forensics has become a lucrative opportunity and has seen new entrants into the space.

London-based Elliptic is Chainalysis’ biggest competitor. The company was launched in 2013 with the intention to provide a Bitcoin storage product. Since 2015, it has stopped providing storage and focused only on blockchain analysis including compliance and criminal investigations. Elliptic has aided authorities in many ransomware investigations including WannaCry. In cooperation with a pro-Bitcoin Silvergate Bank, Elliptic introduced a solution focused on helping banks asses bitcoin-based business clients and comply with necessary regulations.

In early 2017, Jeff Garzik’s Bloq acquired a blockchain analytics firm Skry. Bloq specializes in developing enterprise grade blockchain technology to companies worldwide. BitFury Group announced their blockchain analysis solution dubbed Crystal, which will feature a risk scoring solution that estimates the likelihood of a particular address being involved in illicit activities. Bitfury’s solution will also have a feature that will supposedly untangle previously tumbled transactions used to obfuscate the trail (Diar, 30 October 2017). Other lesser known blockchain analysis solutions are DMG Blockchain Solutions, Scorechain, CipherTrace, Blockchain Intelligence Group and Coinfirm.