Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority just went shopping for surveillance tech. The regulator issued a tender on July 7 for a Virtual Assets Blockchain Analytics System designed to monitor more than 20 blockchain networks in real time, hunting for fraud, money laundering, sanctions evasion, and terrorism financing.
It’s a concrete step toward enforcing a law that, until now, has been mostly theoretical. The country’s Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Act passed Parliament in October 2025 and took effect on November 4, 2025, but not a single crypto platform has been licensed under it yet.
What the CMA is building
The blockchain analytics system will cover Bitcoin, Ethereum, and at least 20 additional networks. Functionally, the tool needs to do several things: screen wallets against international sanctions lists, flag suspicious transaction patterns, detect connections to darknet marketplaces, and support AML/CFT compliance protocols.
The tender signals that the authority is building out its technical infrastructure before the implementing regulations are even finalized. The National Treasury is still drafting those rules.
