Top five blockchain analytics trends for 2025

Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of crypto.news editorial.

From rising costs to attribution trust concerns, blockchain analytics will face many challenges in the coming year. As the year draws to a close, that time has come again; prediction time. From the promise of seamless cross-border payments to the rise of tokenized real-world assets (currently worth around $117.74 billion in tokenized assets) and decentralized identity solutions (a market predicted to reach $2 trillion by 2030).

Year of DeFi compliance

DeFi is already on regulators’ radar. To name a few standout cases, Uniswap Labs received a notice from the SEC and a $175,000 penalty from the CFTC; the court designated Lido DAO as a general partnership. Additionally, the court ruled that identifiable participants who actively manage the DAO’s operations cannot escape liability simply because it is decentralized.

No matter how decentralized DeFi projects are, be prepared; 2025 will be the year of DeFi compatibility. And this needs to be done. The total number of DeFi users exceeded 131 million. Criminals use DeFi services to transfer and launder illicit funds; It exploits weaknesses in the technology behind DeFi platforms, sanctions and AML/CFT regulations.

Applying FATF standards to DeFi is challenging, especially when it comes to determining where platforms are located, operated or registered. The lack of KYC, P2P transactions, cross-chain protocols, privacy tools and decentralized finance are also challenging regulators and analytics.

Increasing compliance costs

With more regulations, compliance becomes more expensive. Alternative? Risking heavy fines, reputational damage and business interruptions. This is another big issue that we need to address and we are already looking at ways to manage it by increasing the speed of operations.

There are two main reasons for the cost increase:

More challenges including: 1) Increase in cybercrime. For example, crypto investment fraud losses reported to IC3 increased by 53% in 2023. 2) Avoiding sanctions. There was a 114% increase in sanctions evasion cases in 2023 compared to 2022. This increase increased by 71.5% in 2022 compared to the previous year. 3) Fraudsters learn quickly and become harder to catch, for example by using artificial intelligence. Regulators like the CFTC warn that criminals are leveraging AI to carry out more sophisticated crypto scams. 4) Increasing political instability is causing shifts in crypto adoption and value. In regions experiencing political unrest, Bitcoin (BTC) adoption is increasing as individuals seek to protect their wealth from government intervention and economic instability. Increasing workload of compliance officers.

With increased regulatory clarity, there are more regulations to follow, leading to greater workloads for compliance officers who must ensure compliance with these new requirements. Let’s say you need around 20 compliance officers to sort through 1,000 alerts per month, as well as money spent on KYC checks. So, if a customer comes into a business depositing $100, or even $1,000, it doesn’t pay off if the clerk has to check at least one alert on that customer.

The compliance department is not the profit-maker; spends money and its costs are distributed among customers. Additionally, there is the risk of fines and imprisonment for non-compliance (note that Binance paid more than $4 billion for AML and sanctions violations, and CZ received a four-month prison sentence).

This increased workload not only strains resources but also increases the risk of oversight errors. The pressure to quickly process thousands of transactions each day, each requiring detailed analysis and documentation, can lead to missing red flags, incomplete investigations, or inaccurate risk assessments.

Artificial intelligence introduction

One possible way to reduce costs is to use AI to automate simple tasks that do not require decision-making by the compliance officer. For example, you can choose to send notifications to specific compliance officers or distribute alerts among team members with the least workload, answer FAQs, etc. can work.

But so far, AI is not ready to handle tasks that require human judgment, such as risk scoring. So for now, the best approach is to carefully integrate it into routine tasks and anyone can sign up with us to test AI in analytics.

Attribution trust

One of the reasons why artificial intelligence has not yet been used in serious matters is the lack of attribution confidence. It exists because two types of data can be mixed:

Where the data is 100% verified and reliable for use in court. Situations where information comes from less reliable sources; for example, someone in X claims that a project is a scam. Such data is not enough to seize funds or charge a customer. However, it could lead compliance officers to investigate further.

Only data with 100% evidence can be relied upon for attribution; These are concrete enough to be used as evidence in court. Without solid evidence, the attribution may be rejected or challenged in court. This weakens enforcement efforts and damages the reputation of the entire crypto industry. People lose trust in blockchain analytics providers if the attribution is inaccurate or unverified. As this trust wanes, regulators and legitimate businesses may become hesitant to deal with crypto.

Secrecy of operations

Privacy is also important when we talk about trust. It is crucial that all compliance activities are kept confidential so that no one knows which transactions are being reviewed until the process is completed.

This level of privacy is essential not only for business, but also for regulators and law enforcement. For regulators and law enforcement, confidentiality allows investigations to be conducted without interference so that bad actors do not receive advance warning. If it becomes public knowledge that transactions are being investigated, fraudsters and money launderers can leverage this information to cover their tracks, erase evidence, or move illicit funds elsewhere.

To avoid this, using private servers like us is a good solution. Enables company/law enforcement/regulators to conduct compliance activities without worry of leaks or unauthorized access. On such servers, sensitive data is kept under tight control so that bad actors are not notified of ongoing investigations.

Lex Fisun

Lex Fisun is the CEO and co-founder of Global Ledger, a Swiss company that provides cryptocurrency AML risk analysis, blockchain forensics, and cybercrime investigation tools. Lex has worked at fintech, artificial intelligence and anti-fraud technology companies since 2015, which led him to found Global Ledger in 2019 in response to increased scrutiny of crypto regulations. It has established links with leading global organizations, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Global Coalition to Combat Financial Crime.