Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Success! Now Check Your Email

To complete Subscribe, click the confirmation link in your inbox. If it doesn’t arrive within 3 minutes, check your spam folder.

Ok, Thanks

Nimiq releases open-source anti-money laundering tool for cross-chain cryptocurrency investigations

The blockchain company has published a detection framework developed with University of Birmingham researchers, tested against data from the $1.5 billion Bybit hack

Defused News Writer profile image
by Defused News Writer
Nimiq releases open-source anti-money laundering tool for cross-chain cryptocurrency investigations
Photo by Portuguese Gravity / Unsplash

Nimiq, a cryptocurrency blockchain company, has released SynapTrack, an anti-money laundering framework designed to trace illicit funds as they move across multiple blockchain networks, pass through bridges or split into parallel transaction paths to obscure their origin.

The tool was presented in London and is now available to developers, researchers and the broader cryptocurrency community for testing and collaborative development.

SynapTrack v1 combines blockchain-aware pattern analysis with a self-improving detection algorithm intended to reduce false positives and lower the volume of manual review work required during investigations.

In early testing using transaction data from the 2025 Bybit hack, in which attackers stole $1.5 billion in digital tokens, SynapTrack traced the attackers' activity with a false positive rate below 2%, the company said.

The framework was developed by University of Birmingham researchers led by Dr Pascal Berrang and PhD student Endong Liu, with implementation support from Nimiq.

Dr Berrang said blockchain transactions had grown at near-exponential rates in recent years, and that blockchains remained attractive to criminals because funds could be moved rapidly across jurisdictions, creating a significant gap in financial oversight.

Max Burger, global ecosystem developer at Nimiq, said SynapTrack was designed to make blockchain investigations more scalable as laundering patterns evolve and cross-chain activity complicates analysis, and that opening the tool to the wider community would allow for testing, feedback and improvement.

The release positions SynapTrack as an engineering-ready system for investigators and compliance teams working on cases involving complex, multi-chain fund flows.

Nimiq said the tool is open for evaluation and collaboration, and described the release as the first product milestone of a broader research-driven effort to improve the safety and trustworthiness of blockchain ecosystems.

The recap

  • Nimiq and University of Birmingham release SynapTrack AML framework.
  • Traced 2025 Bybit hack with false positive rate below 2%.
  • SynapTrack v1 presented in London and opened to collaborators.
Defused News Writer profile image
by Defused News Writer