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.

The VASP Act and Kenya’s regulatory split

Kenya’s approach to crypto regulation isn’t a single-agency affair. The VASP Act carves up oversight responsibilities between two bodies. The CMA handles capital markets-related virtual asset activities, while the Central Bank of Kenya takes jurisdiction over stablecoins and payment-related crypto services.

Africa’s broader regulatory momentum

Kenya isn’t operating in a vacuum. South Africa began licensing crypto platforms under its Financial Sector Conduct Authority in 2023. Nigeria, after years of outright hostility toward crypto, has been developing its own regulatory pathway through the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Companies like Chainalysis, Elliptic, and TRM Labs have been selling blockchain analytics tools to regulators and financial institutions globally for years. The US Treasury, European regulators, and Asian authorities all rely on similar systems.

What this means for the market

For crypto businesses eyeing the Kenyan market, any platform seeking a VASP license will need to demonstrate that its operations can withstand the scrutiny of a regulator armed with chain-level surveillance tools. Larger, well-capitalized exchanges with existing compliance teams, think Binance, Coinbase, or regional players like Yellow Card, would have a structural advantage when licenses eventually become available.

With implementing regulations still being drafted by the National Treasury, whoever wins this analytics contract will likely have input into how the technical standards are shaped. The vendor selection could influence the compliance architecture for Kenya’s entire digital asset industry.