Kenya's Capital Markets Authority Seeks Blockchain Surveillance for Virtual Asset Regulation

Kenya's Capital Markets Authority is pushing to acquire a blockchain surveillance system to monitor virtual asset activity and enforce its new regulatory framework.

The Virtual Assets Service Providers Act, signed by President William Ruto in October, gives Kenya its first structured legal framework for digital assets. The law divides responsibility between the Central Bank of Kenya, which oversees payments, stablecoins, and custodial wallets, and the Capital Markets Authority, which regulates exchanges, brokers, investment advisers, and tokenization platforms.

The CMA's decision to seek dedicated blockchain intelligence software is a practical translation of regulatory ambition into enforcement capacity. The platform would generate automated alerts for high-risk wallets, suspicious transactions, coin mixers, and darknet-linked addresses, and screen transactions against United Nations and U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions lists.

The surveillance tool would also map relationships between wallets, reconstruct transaction timelines, trace funds across multiple chains, and assign risk scores tied to money laundering, ransomware, fraud, and terrorism financing. Kenya received about $19 billion in crypto between July 2024 and June 2025, making it the fourth largest crypto market in Africa.