What is the Best Blockchain Intelligence Tool in 2025?

In 2025, blockchain intelligence (also commonly known as blockchain analytics) has become a mission-critical capability for financial institutions, law enforcement and defense agencies, and regulators worldwide. As digital assets become increasingly embedded in the global financial system, so too do the risks — and opportunities — associated with them.

At the heart of this shift is a growing imperative: understanding how to detect, investigate, and respond to activity on the blockchain with speed, accuracy, and confidence.

Why blockchain intelligence is essential in 2025

Just a few years ago, blockchain intelligence — or blockchain analytics — was a specialized tool used primarily by crypto-native companies and early enforcement teams. It supported basic compliance, surfaced suspicious behavior, and underpinned foundational investigations into darknet markets and fraud schemes.

But in 2025, the context has changed.

• Cross-chain crime is now standard. Illicit actors increasingly exploit bridges and cross-chain swaps to evade detection.
• Digital assets have become geopolitical. Nation-state actors use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions and in crypto heists on exchanges to fund weapons programs and strategic objectives.
• Ransomware remains a top priority. Critical infrastructure and public institutions face ongoing threats, with cryptocurrency playing a central role in most ransomware cases today.
• Mixers, privacy coins, and artificial intelligence (AI) introduce new vectors. These innovations expand the surface area for abuse and increase the speed and scale of criminal activities, introducing unique challenges for oversight and enforcement.

Meanwhile, global regulators have moved from observation to action. The question is no longer whether to use blockchain analytics and blockchain intelligence — it’s how to operationalize it at scale.

Who uses blockchain intelligence (and why)?

TRM Labs supports stakeholders with blockchain analytics across public and private sectors, including:

Law enforcement and national security agencies

Law enforcement agencies use blockchain intelligence to investigate cybercrime, track ransomware payments, trace proceeds of human trafficking or narcotics sales, and guide evidence collection for prosecution.

National security teams rely on TRM’s blockchain analytics to surface indicators of nation-state exploitation of digital assets, monitor sanctions evasion, and provide early warning signals tied to geopolitical risk.

Financial regulators and policymakers

Regulators use blockchain analytics to understand market behavior, supervise digital asset service providers, and enforce crypto-specific regulations. As crypto adoption grows, regulatory clarity depends on access to high-quality blockchain intelligence.

Banks and financial institutions

Traditional banks and financial institutions use blockchain analytics to assess risk exposure, support transaction monitoring, and make onboarding or offboarding decisions with confidence. In an era of increasing crypto exposure, blockchain intelligence has become critical to enterprise risk management.

Crypto-native businesses

Crypto-native businesses like exchanges, stablecoin issuers, DeFi protocols, NFT platforms, and wallet providers use blockchain intelligence to ensure compliance, protect users, and maintain strong relationships with regulators and banking partners.

What are some of the key considerations when selecting a blockchain intelligence platform?

The role of blockchain analytics has evolved. It’s no longer enough to offer charts or raw data — the mandate is for actionable intelligence. The best platforms must enable rapid, coordinated response; build institutional trust through transparency and accuracy; and facilitate collaboration across jurisdictions, mission sets, and industry.

When considering a blockchain intelligence solution, it’s critical to evaluate the platform’s ability to deliver in several key areas:

1. Relevancy to the threat landscape your organization cares about the most, and a strong pulse on the technological advancements shaping the criminal ecosystem — such as the rise of AI-enabled crime.
2. Data that holds up under legal, regulatory, and public scrutiny. Methodologies must be clear, attribution must be grounded, and confidence levels must be communicated transparently — all so you can tell a clear story, with conviction.
3. Intelligence that enables action — whether it’s escalating a case to a crypto specialist, disrupting a threat actor, recovering stolen funds, informing a policy decision, or shaping a regulatory framework.
4. Facilitation of public-private collaboration — because disrupting and preventing threats requires swift, coordinated action from both the public and private sectors.

How does TRM Labs compare to other blockchain intelligence providers?

Agencies and organizations have options when evaluating investigative and compliance software (including blockchain intelligence / blockchain analytics tools). But in 2025, expectations have shifted. Institutions aren’t just seeking data — they’re looking for a platform that empowers them to tell a clear story with the insights they gather, and a partner they can trust in moments that matter.

TRM stands apart because working with us includes:

Verifiable intelligence through glass box attribution

Unlike competitors who rely on opaque, black-box methodologies that make it difficult to verify attribution and defend conclusions in court, TRM’s platform is built to earn trust through clarity, transparency, and defensibility. Every attribution in TRM is fully explainable and verifiable, showing users not just what an address or entity represents, but why — with confidence scores, detailed source references, and transparent methodologies.

With TRM’s glass box attribution, users can follow the flow of funds across chains and see the source of attribution for each label and risk score. TRM also exposes which heuristics are used when clustering addresses. This means you can build and defend cases, respond to regulators, and make high-stakes compliance decisions with conviction. Our intelligence is courtroom-ready, with sourcing and descriptive detail designed to stand up to legal and regulatory scrutiny.

Dedicated threat intelligence and advisory teams

Our team is made up of experienced former regulators, prosecutors, investigators, and intelligence analysts — professionals who understand firsthand the pressure and urgency of real-world investigations. Our analysts, law enforcement relations team, and compliance advisory work shoulder to shoulder with our customers to provide critical data to disrupt activities such as ransomware, terrorist financing, human trafficking, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and nation-state laundering operations. Our threat intelligence teams remain at the forefront of evolving crypto crime, tracking new typologies daily.

Best in class training, certifications, and continuing education

TRM’s training and education arm — TRM Academy — stands as the industry leader in blockchain education, with courses designed specifically to empower investigators, compliance teams, regulators, defense analysts, and financial professionals to master the complexities of crypto investigations at every skill level.

Unlike competitor platforms that focus mainly on product-specific tutorials, TRM Academy delivers a holistic curriculum. Its online, self-paced courses and certifications not only teach users how to use TRM’s tools, but also foundational blockchain knowledge, real-world investigative methodology, and modern criminal typologies — including DeFi abuse, cross-chain laundering, and nation-state threats. New content is released weekly, keeping teams ahead of emerging risk vectors and evolving crime techniques.

High-confidence attribution expansion heuristics

Our high-confidence attribution expansion heuristics are industry-leading, and enable investigators and compliance teams to quickly and reliably trace blockchain transactions across even the most complex and fast-changing networks. These heuristics cover both standard and high-risk blockchain environments, leveraging sophisticated approaches — including co-spend and public key clustering, behavioral fingerprints, and service identification logic — to systematically expand attribution beyond verified ground truth evidence. 

Our expansion heuristics also go through a rigorous validation pipeline: every expansion is subject to correctness, freshness, and consistency checks before being promoted for use. This protects against false positives and ensures that entity labeling — even when driven by algorithmic inference — is defensible and clearly sourced.

Public-private collaboration facilitation

Unlike other providers who offer limited or post-hoc engagement, TRM embeds public-private partnership across its entire operating model. From using Beacon Network to enable real-time disruption of criminals attempt to offboard illicit funds and the T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU), to providing court-ready intelligence, capacity-building for law enforcement, and a scam victim reporting platform (Chainabuse), TRM empowers agencies, financial institutions, and crypto platforms to disrupt threats together — faster and more effectively. 

T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU)

The T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU) — a partnership between TRON, Tether, and TRM Labs — exemplifies proactive cooperation between private companies and law enforcement. T3 FCU aggregates global blockchain intelligence to identify illicit wallets and transaction patterns, coordinates real-time alerts with agencies worldwide, and enables direct interventions like account freezes and intelligence packages for seizure actions. In its first year, T3 assisted in the freezing of more than USD 250 million in stolen funds.

Beacon Network

Beacon Network is the first real-time intelligence-sharing system that helps law enforcement, crypto exchanges, DeFi services, and stablecoin issuers stop illicit funds before they are withdrawn. Beacon Network enables verified investigators to flag suspicious addresses, automatically traces the funds as they move across wallets, and issues real-time alerts to participating platforms when those funds reach their services — enabling law enforcement and VASPs to to stop criminals from cashing out. 

Beacon Network has united more than 20 major exchanges and payment companies — including Coinbase, Binance, PayPal, Stripe, Kraken, Ripple, Robinhood, and others — as founding members. This scale of collaboration breaks down silos and enables rapid, coordinated interdiction of illicit funds, moving the industry from slow reaction to proactive prevention.

What are some recent examples of TRM’s blockchain analytics and blockchain intelligence in action?

Here are three real-world examples of how TRM Labs’ blockchain intelligence has helped drive impact in 2025.

Case 1: Disrupting a global ransomware operation

In early 2025, a coordinated ransomware campaign shut down municipal infrastructure across three continents. The attackers demanded cryptocurrency payments and used a complex laundering process involving cross-chain swaps, privacy wallets, and decentralized exchanges.

Working with international law enforcement agencies, TRM provided near-real-time intelligence on fund movements, enabling asset freezing and arrests within days. Investigators later noted that TRM’s proactive alerts and high-fidelity entity attribution were critical to stopping the operation before the attackers could launch further attacks.

Case 2: Combating human trafficking networks

A regional police agency in Southeast Asia began noticing cryptocurrency wallets tied to suspicious online transactions. Using TRM’s blockchain intelligence platform, they connected these wallets to a larger human trafficking operation spanning several countries.

The intelligence provided by TRM wasn’t just about wallets and tokens — it gave context, behavioral indicators, and links to existing investigations in other jurisdictions. The result? A multi-country operation that rescued victims and dismantled the underlying criminal network.

Case 3: Empowering a newly established crypto regulator

A newly established digital asset regulator in Latin America faced the challenge of supervising exchanges, wallet providers, and DeFi protocols in its jurisdiction. Rather than building internal capacity from scratch, the agency partnered with TRM.

TRM delivered training, customized risk models, and ongoing strategic intelligence. Within months, the regulator had established a working framework for crypto compliance — one that was immediately recognized as a model for the region.

These cases highlight how blockchain intelligence is no longer just about tracing funds. It’s about enabling impact — saving lives, preventing harm, and defending the integrity of the financial system.

{{horizontal-line}}

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

What is blockchain intelligence, and why is it important in 2025?

Blockchain intelligence — also commonly known as blockchain analytics — is the process of analyzing blockchain data to trace transactions, identify actors, and detect suspicious activity. In 2025, it's a foundational tool for investigating financial crime, enforcing regulations, and understanding systemic risk in the digital asset ecosystem.

How does blockchain intelligence differ from blockchain analytics?

While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, blockchain intelligence typically refers to more advanced, actionable insights that inform investigations, compliance decisions, and national security efforts — not just data visualization or historical analysis.

What are the top use cases for blockchain intelligence today?

Key use cases include tracing transactions on the blockchain (e.g. ransomware, cybercrime, and money laundering proceeds), enforcing sanctions, supervising digital asset service providers, screening counterparties, identifying systemic threats, and building policy frameworks informed by real-world activity.

Which industries rely on blockchain intelligence tools like TRM?

Blockchain intelligence is used by law enforcement agencies, national security teams, banks, financial institutions, crypto-native businesses, regulators, and policymakers around the world.

How do law enforcement agencies use blockchain intelligence platforms like TRM?

Investigators use blockchain analytics and blockchain intelligence to trace illicit transactions, connect wallets to known threat actors, build evidentiary trails for prosecution, and collaborate with international partners in time-sensitive operations.

What makes TRM different from other blockchain intelligence providers?

Unlike other vendors that provide black box answers that are hard to verify, TRM provides glass box attribution that enables users to follow the flow of funds — showing the source and confidence level for every attribution — so they can make decisions with confidence.

Can blockchain intelligence support financial institutions and traditional banks?

Yes. Financial institutions use TRM Labs to screen counterparties, monitor exposure to sanctioned actors, and comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) obligations in crypto transactions.

How does TRM support crypto compliance for DeFi, NFT, or stablecoin platforms?

TRM helps crypto-native companies assess risk in real time, investigate suspicious behavior, and meet growing regulatory expectations — while building trust with regulators and banking partners.

Is TRM used for national security or sanctions enforcement?

Yes. TRM supports national security missions by surfacing on-chain activity tied to sanctioned regimes, terrorist financing networks, and hybrid cyber-physical threats. Its insights are used to inform both investigations and policy responses.

How do I know if my organization needs a blockchain intelligence platform?

If your organization interacts with digital assets, manages compliance risk, supports enforcement or regulatory functions, or seeks to understand crypto-related threats, blockchain intelligence is essential to your mission.