At Money20/20 Asia in Bangkok in April 2026, Chainalysis ASEAN and Hong Kong Regional Director Diederik Van Wersch told WuBlockchain that on-chain crime is becoming more professionalized and industrialized, while AI is raising the speed and scale of both attacks and investigations. His central point was that the industry can no longer rely mainly on post-incident tracing. It needs real-time monitoring and earlier intervention.
Chainalysis says its role now extends beyond transaction tracing
The interview framed Chainalysis as more than a blockchain data vendor. Its address labels, entity attribution work, and risk databases have become part of the infrastructure used by exchanges, financial institutions, and law enforcement agencies to assess on-chain fund flows. Once an address, entity, or network is identified as linked to sanctions, hacks, money laundering, or other high-risk activity, that information can move quickly into compliance systems across trading platforms and regulated institutions, affecting whether funds can continue to move.
WuBlockchain cited HTX in 2026 as an example. The UK sanctioned HTX in May over allegations that it helped Russia evade sanctions, and the European Union later added it to trading restrictions tied to sanctions evasion involving Russia. Chainalysis then blacklisted HTX addresses, which in turn left almost all HTX users unable to transfer funds out, according to the article.
Asked whether Chainalysis is still mainly a company focused on tracing on-chain funds, Van Wersch said law enforcement investigations remain an important part of the business and that agencies have used Chainalysis data and analytical tools in major crypto cases. But he said the company’s scope is now much broader than it was in its early years.
Chainalysis currently serves more than 1,500 public- and private-sector customers, he said, including banks and payment companies exploring on-chain business lines, exchanges that need real-time compliance monitoring, and DeFi protocols focused on risk management.
He described the company as a provider of blockchain data and analytics infrastructure. Its core work, he said, is to analyze on-chain transactions and address activity, then provide institutions with the data and context they need. Those users may include compliance teams at stablecoin issuers, fraud investigators at fintech firms, or government agencies tracking sanctions evasion. The use cases differ, but the common need is a more accurate understanding of what is happening on-chain.
Raw blockchain data without context can create noise
Van Wersch said blockchains do not suffer from a lack of data. Every transaction is public, and every block is immutable. The harder task is turning raw data into information that can actually be used and verified.
That usually requires address and entity attribution, behavioral analysis, cross-chain fund tracing, and real-world context. More data on its own is not necessarily more valuable, he said. Without explanation and supporting context, data can generate noise, false positives, and even a false sense of security.
For institutions, he argued, what matters more is verifiable on-chain intelligence. Analytical conclusions need to be accurate, auditable, traceable, and able to withstand outside scrutiny. A regulator may ask why a counterparty was classified as risky. In a judicial setting, on-chain evidence may face deeper review.
As more traditional institutions enter crypto, regulatory frameworks mature, and criminal methods become more complex, the standard for on-chain analysis is rising. In his view, the key issue is no longer how to collect more data, but how to improve interpretability, verifiability, and decision value.
The keyword for 2026: convergence
If he had to choose one word for 2026, Van Wersch said it would be “convergence.” He argued that the defining feature of the year is not one isolated breakout trend, but the way stablecoins, institutional participation, regulatory implementation, and AI are developing at the same time and beginning to reinforce one another.
According to Chainalysis, stablecoin transaction volume tied to real economic activity reached about $28 trillion in 2025. Based on the current trajectory, he said, stablecoin transaction scale could move closer over the next decade to traditional payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard.
That growth is drawing more banks and payment companies into on-chain business, while the entry of traditional financial institutions is increasing demand for clearer rules. Markets across Asia, the Middle East, and the US are advancing related frameworks, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UAE.
At the same time, AI is being used by different parts of the industry. Scam groups are using it to expand fraud and social engineering operations. Investigators and compliance teams are using it to identify anomalies automatically, improve tracing efficiency, and process larger volumes of on-chain data.
For that reason, Van Wersch said labels such as “stablecoins,” “AI,” or “institutionalization” are too narrow on their own. What matters is the way these trends are now intersecting.
Transparency does not automatically make crypto safer
Chainalysis said one common misconception is that greater on-chain transparency naturally reduces risk. Transparency answers the question of whether activity can be seen. It does not, by itself, create security.
In its 2026 Crypto Crime Report, Chainalysis said crypto addresses linked to illicit activity received at least $154 billion in 2025, up 162% from a year earlier. One major driver was a 694% increase in the value of crypto received by sanctioned entities.
The firm also said some forms of illicit activity are no longer best understood as opportunistic behavior by individuals or small groups. They are showing stronger signs of organization. The interview pointed to North Korea-linked hacking groups that have continued to take part in large-scale crypto theft. It cited the nearly $1.5 billion attack on Bybit in 2025 as one of the larger examples.
The article also said some Chinese-language money laundering networks are building more complete criminal service chains, offering “money laundering as a service” to support scams, sanctions evasion, and even terrorist financing.
In that setting, public blockchain transparency only creates the possibility of tracing and analysis. Large volumes of raw on-chain data do not directly translate into risk judgments without attribution, cross-chain tracing, and behavioral analysis. As criminal methods become more professionalized, the industry’s challenge is shifting from transparency alone to turning public data into usable risk intelligence, improving information sharing among exchanges, financial institutions, law enforcement, and regulators, and moving compliance and risk detection closer to prevention rather than response.
Stablecoins are moving from trading tools toward payment infrastructure
Van Wersch said stablecoins have already started to enter the payment infrastructure phase, and the data reflects that shift. In 2025, adjusted stablecoin economic transaction volume reached $28 trillion. If trading and speculative activity are stripped out further and only real economic uses such as payments, remittances, and settlement are counted, the compound annual growth rate for that segment reached 133%.
He said recent moves by large financial institutions also point in the same direction. Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge and Mastercard’s partnership with BVNK were not just about crypto trading activity. They were focused on stablecoin use in payment infrastructure.
In Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, stablecoins are already being used for cross-border B2B settlement and remittances. Compared with traditional payment rails, those methods can lower costs in some cases and shorten settlement times, though he said the transition is still in its early stages.
For stablecoins to become more mature payment infrastructure, he said regulation cannot stop at issuance. It also needs to cover distribution, circulation, and integration with existing payment and settlement systems. The next question is not simply whether stablecoins can be issued, but how they enter the financial system and gain wider use under workable compliance and risk controls.
He added that the $28 trillion figure is already an adjusted measure. It filters out a meaningful share of on-chain activity that does not represent real economic use, including bot-driven trading, liquidity provision, and MEV-related activity. That makes it closer than raw on-chain volume to the scale of actual stablecoin economic activity.
Still, he said the figure should not be read as entirely payments and settlement. The adjusted total still includes several forms of economic activity, including trading, DeFi, cross-border remittances, B2B payments, corporate treasury management, and merchant settlement. Stablecoin usage remains mixed. Payments and settlement are growing, but trading and on-chain finance are still major components.
The three compliance questions institutions ask most often
Van Wersch said the questions Chainalysis hears most often from banks and payment companies fall into three broad categories.
The first is counterparty risk: how an institution can know who it is transacting with on-chain. Traditional banks are used to correspondent relationships between known counterparties. On-chain, institutions need to assess the risk profile of a wallet, service provider, or entity, including whether it is linked to high-risk addresses, illicit activity, or other sensitive actors.
The second is sanctions risk: how to make sure the institution is not processing transactions tied to sanctioned entities. He said this became more prominent in 2025. Chainalysis data showed a 694% year-over-year increase in on-chain transaction volume linked to sanctioned entities, while stablecoins accounted for 84% of total illicit transaction volume. That makes real-time screening more important for banks, especially because stablecoin transfers are fast and inherently cross-border.
He noted that the same features that make stablecoins useful for legitimate payments, including speed, global reach, and 24/7 settlement, can also be exploited by illicit actors. For banks, payment firms, and exchanges entering stablecoin payments, the real issue is not just whether they can connect to stablecoins. It is whether their compliance systems can keep up with transaction scale, whether different markets can interoperate, and how they can control illicit on-chain fund risk as business expands.
The third issue is cross-jurisdictional regulatory uncertainty. Many institutions are not asking whether regulation exists, but which rulebook applies. In Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan are each building their own stablecoin and crypto regulatory frameworks.
For cross-border operators, that means dealing at the same time with issuance, custody, AML/CFT, and consumer protection requirements that are not fully aligned across markets. From the perspective of banks and payment firms, stablecoin business is moving from a question of technical feasibility to one of practical implementation under multiple regulatory and risk constraints.
How Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UAE differ
Van Wersch said the main Asian and Middle Eastern markets are not competing in exactly the same way. As stablecoin regulation moves from framework design to implementation, differences in policy path and market structure are becoming clearer.
Singapore’s strength, he said, is a relatively mature regulatory system. Under the Payment Services Act, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, has expanded its focus beyond AML/CFT to include consumer protection, technology risk, and stablecoin-specific rules.
Singapore is also exploring scenarios involving banks holding regulated stablecoins, public blockchain applications, tokenized government securities, and wholesale CBDC settlement. That suggests the focus is not only on stablecoin issuance, but on linking stablecoins, tokenization, and existing financial infrastructure.
Hong Kong’s path is more bank-led. From sandbox efforts to the Stablecoins Ordinance, the city has moved quickly on the regulatory side, and early participants have reflected the role of banks and large financial institutions. The interview cited HSBC’s plan to connect stablecoin-related applications with existing retail payment channels such as PayMe. If that model is implemented, one of Hong Kong’s defining features could be the use of banks’ existing customer bases to bring stablecoins into broader payment scenarios.
The UAE, by contrast, has multiple regulators and has moved relatively aggressively on the payments side. The UAE central bank has established a framework around payment tokens, while Dubai’s VARA, Abu Dhabi’s ADGM, and DIFC each maintain their own crypto regulatory systems. That multi-regulator model may offer more flexibility and speed, but it can also make coordination more complex. As payment-token compliance requirements are put into practice, the market will get a clearer view of whether the model works effectively.
In broad terms, he said, Singapore emphasizes regulatory completeness and integration with traditional financial infrastructure. Hong Kong leans toward a bank-led model and is trying to use existing retail finance networks to expand reach. The UAE puts more weight on execution speed and commercial flexibility.
But once stablecoins move deeper into mainstream payments, he said, the factors that determine whether these markets can attract long-term institutional capital will not be limited to license counts or product launch speed. Financial integrity issues such as AML, sanctions, and secondary-market fund flows will matter as well. He pointed to Hong Kong’s requirement that stablecoin issuers monitor not only direct counterparties but also related activity in secondary markets, extending traditional AML thinking into on-chain fund movement itself.
Which APAC markets stand out
According to Van Wersch, APAC has become one of the fastest-growing regions for on-chain crypto activity, with the value of crypto received over the past year rising 69% year over year. But growth paths differ sharply across the region.
India is one of the markets he said deserves the closest attention. In the Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index, India ranks highly across retail, CeFi, DeFi, and institutional adoption, with estimated crypto value received at about $338 billion.
He said India combines several factors at once: large-scale grassroots adoption, sustained cross-border remittance demand from a large overseas population, and a relatively mature domestic fintech ecosystem. Because of that mix, future changes in Indian regulation could have an outsized effect on the global crypto market.
Japan also changed noticeably over the past year. Among major APAC markets, Japan posted growth of about 120%, making it one of the fastest-growing markets in the region. The interview linked that shift to regulatory reform, expectations around crypto tax changes, and progress tied to yen stablecoins. After several relatively cautious years, Japan is showing stronger momentum again.
Indonesia’s on-chain crypto activity rose about 103% year over year, making it one of Southeast Asia’s faster-growing markets. A young population, high mobile internet usage, and a gradually clearer regulatory framework have all supported adoption.
Vietnam also stands out. Its growth rate over the past year was about 55%, lower than Indonesia and Japan, but the article said part of the reason is that crypto already has relatively high penetration there. From remittances and gaming to savings, crypto has entered more everyday financial use cases. The more important question in Vietnam may not be growth alone, but whether crypto is moving from an investment tool toward practical financial infrastructure.
Emerging markets are reshaping the global risk map
Van Wersch said emerging markets are still easy to underestimate, both as sources of opportunity and as sources of risk. Countries such as Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia show that in some places crypto is not just a speculative asset. It is moving into remittances, gaming, savings, and other concrete financial uses.
That tends to happen more easily where traditional financial infrastructure is limited, cross-border payments are expensive, or populations are young and highly connected through mobile internet. But crypto adoption in those markets can also outpace the development of local regulation, enforcement, and compliance infrastructure.
When high adoption coincides with relatively limited institutional oversight capacity, it can create room for cross-border scams, money laundering, and other illicit fund flows. The interview said some Chinese-language money laundering networks described in recent Chainalysis crime research exploit differences in regulatory and compliance capacity across jurisdictions to serve cross-border illicit finance.
He added that global attention still focuses more heavily on the US, Europe, and major financial centers such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Yet in terms of user growth, practical use, and risk evolution, some of the fastest changes are taking place in emerging markets. For the industry, those markets may become both a major source of the next wave of adoption and a test of whether risk governance can keep pace with growth.
Funds are being identified faster after hacks
Asked how long stolen funds can remain hidden after a hack, Van Wersch said the more common mistake today is not overestimating anonymity, but underestimating how quickly on-chain fund flows can now be identified and traced. Analytical capabilities have improved significantly over the past few years. Investigators can trace funds across different blockchains and bridges, link clusters of wallets to real-world entities, and use transaction behavior to assess the context behind fund movements.
Some investigations that once took months can now be shortened to days or even hours, he said. He pointed to the earlier Kelp DAO incident. After the attack, the project moved quickly to intervene and avoided a second loss of about $95 million. Arbitrum Security Council then worked with law enforcement and froze more than 30,000 ETH in the attacker’s later fund flows within days.
For exchanges and project teams, he said, that means compliance and security cannot be treated only as post-incident functions. Whether the issue is a hack, a smart contract vulnerability, or exposure to illicit funds, the on-chain record remains for a long time, and the speed at which those records can be analyzed and linked may be faster than many institutions expect.
That is also one of the defining features of public blockchain transparency. Once a risk event occurs, fund flows usually leave a relatively complete on-chain trail. The real question is whether institutions have monitoring and response systems in place before the event happens.
Why manual investigations are struggling to keep up
Van Wersch said the most direct reason is that illicit actors have started using AI. Whether the activity involves fraud, theft, money laundering, or social engineering, AI is lowering operating costs for some forms of crime and making them easier to scale. Investigation and compliance teams need to increase their own analytical speed in response.
Another reason is that on-chain data and analytical tools have reached a new stage of accumulation. Over more than a decade, Chainalysis has built up address attribution data, transaction records, and case libraries. But using that information for complex investigations has traditionally required specialized expertise and operational skill.
That is why Chainalysis recently launched Blockchain Intelligence Agents, he said. The goal is to use AI to lower the barrier to using on-chain analysis tools, allowing investigators, compliance analysts, and other internal teams to query blockchain data, analyze fund paths, and review the basis for those findings in a more natural way rather than relying entirely on manual workflows.
He also stressed that the practical capability of such AI agents still depends heavily on the quality of the underlying data. Large language models alone are not enough for reliable attribution and fund tracing. They need to be combined with structured data such as address labels, transaction relationships, cross-chain data, and historical investigation records.
At the same time, crypto crime itself is becoming more organized. State-backed hacking activity and cross-border criminal networks that provide professional laundering services mean the number and complexity of risk events may exceed what human teams can handle on their own.
From Chainalysis’ perspective, AI is not mainly about replacing investigators. Its more important role is to improve screening, tracing, and risk identification efficiency so limited human teams can handle larger volumes of on-chain activity.
Attackers are adopting AI faster, but defenders still have an edge
Asked whether scammers or investigators have the upper hand as AI spreads to both sides, Van Wersch said attackers are moving faster in terms of adoption speed, but defenders still have the long-term structural advantage.
He said illicit actors can adopt AI more quickly because they operate with few regulatory, compliance, or audit constraints. Deepfakes, automated phishing, synthetic identity generation, and social engineering scripts can all be iterated at lower cost and at larger scale. Scams remain one of the most common forms of illicit crypto activity, and AI has lowered the barrier to entry even further.
Defenders, however, still benefit from something attackers cannot change: blockchain transparency. On-chain transactions remain traceable and auditable over time, which means fund flows leave durable records once they occur.
When that transparency is combined with address attribution, historical investigative patterns, compliance processes, and AI-driven analysis, some cross-chain and cross-entity investigations that once took weeks of manual work can in theory be compressed sharply. In his view, the decisive factor may not be AI itself, but who deploys and uses it faster.
For banks, exchanges, law enforcement agencies, and compliance teams, he said, there is still an opportunity to build an advantage by combining AI with on-chain analytics now. If deployment is too slow, they may instead face scams and laundering operations that are already expanding at machine speed.
Why stablecoin payment firms face tougher compliance demands
Van Wersch said the biggest difference between stablecoin payment firms and traditional crypto companies is that stablecoin payment firms sit at the connection point between crypto and the traditional financial system. Their counterparties are often not only crypto-native firms, but also banks, card networks, and regulators. Those institutions usually have much lower tolerance for compliance gaps.
As a result, the needs of stablecoin payment firms are more complex than a simple address-screening interface can handle. They often need real-time transaction monitoring, counterparty risk assessment, exposure analysis, and the ability to demonstrate compliance with different requirements across multiple jurisdictions at the same time.
He said these firms represent the convergence of crypto-native technology and traditional financial compliance standards. As more stablecoins move into payment use cases, the risk-control and compliance expectations placed on such companies will move closer to those applied to traditional financial institutions.
Why audited projects are still suffering major attacks
Chainalysis said recent DeFi security incidents point to a recurring problem: the industry still relies too heavily on post-incident response, and that model is increasingly unable to match the speed of attacks. According to Chainalysis, crypto hacks caused about $3.4 billion in losses in 2025, and the major attacked projects within its dataset had all undergone some degree of security audit beforehand.
That does not mean code audits have no value. It means pre-launch audits and security reviews alone are no longer enough to cover all risks. Looking at incidents involving Drift and Bybit, the article said some projects were missing real-time on-chain monitoring and response capabilities during the attack itself, including the ability to identify abnormal fund flows, permission calls, or other suspicious behavior before losses widened.
Chainalysis cited an earlier Venus Protocol incident in which a monitoring system identified abnormal activity about 18 hours before the attack. The team then paused related operations and ultimately handled the funds considered at risk.
The broader shift, the firm said, is that DeFi security is moving from “checking code before launch” to “continuous monitoring after launch.” Smart contract audits remain necessary, but protocols, exchanges, and blockchain networks may also need layered defenses that include real-time risk monitoring, anomaly detection, and automated response. Attackers can now complete on-chain operations very quickly. Defensive systems need to respond at comparable speed.
Four trends Chainalysis is watching in 2026
Van Wersch said he sees four clear trends for 2026.
First, stablecoins are moving further from trading tools toward financial infrastructure. Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached about $28 trillion in 2025, and as payments, settlement, and cross-border transfers expand, stablecoins are entering the traditional financial system more deeply. But future growth will depend not only on volume. It will also depend on compliance, risk management, and how stablecoins connect with existing payment and settlement networks.
Second, regulation is moving from framework design to actual enforcement. Over the past year, the US, Hong Kong, Singapore, and multiple markets across Asia and the Middle East have advanced stablecoin and crypto regulatory frameworks. In 2026, the industry’s focus will shift from what the rules say to how they are enforced in practice. That will directly affect cross-border business, licensing, AML/CFT, custody, and consumer protection. For institutions, compliance capability will increasingly determine whether they can enter different markets.
Third, crypto crime is becoming more professionalized and industrialized. Illicit on-chain activity remained elevated in 2025, while state-backed hacking groups, cross-border criminal networks, and sanctioned entities built more mature transfer and laundering infrastructure. The industry is no longer dealing only with scattered hackers or isolated scams, but with more organized and more specialized adversaries.
Fourth, AI will amplify both attack and defense. It is lowering the cost of scams, phishing, identity forgery, and social engineering, while also helping investigators, trading platforms, and compliance teams improve anomaly detection, fund tracing, and risk analysis.
His closing point was that the most important story in 2026 is not any one of these trends in isolation. It is the fact that stablecoins are entering payment systems, regulation is moving into implementation, on-chain crime is becoming more professionalized, and AI is accelerating both sides of the security contest at the same time.