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About CipherTrace
CipherTrace is a blockchain analytics and crypto intelligence firm whose capabilities now underpin Mastercard's digital-asset risk products after the 2021 acquisition. It combines address clustering, fund-flow tracing and entity attribution so banks, exchanges and investigators can establish who a counterparty is, where funds came from and whether sanctions exposure exists. Deliverables include virtual asset service provider risk assessments, transaction monitoring and tracing, reported as risk scores and followable paths that reconstruct origin hop by hop rather than a single blacklist hit, and results can be cross-checked against enforcement records and exchange KYC data.
Inside Mastercard the capability works on two levels: it feeds Crypto Secure, which lets issuers rate crypto merchants, and it forms the on-chain engine of Stablecoin Security, launched in October 2026, which returns a single risk score before settlement. The standalone line contracted in 2024, with Armada, Inspector and Sentry shut down. Attribution depends on public ledger legibility, and tracing weakens for funds routed through mixers or privacy protocols.
CipherTrace was founded in the United States in 2015, focusing on cryptocurrency anti-money laundering and on-chain forensic analysis. In 2019, it completed a $15 million Series A round led by Aspect Ventures with participation from Galaxy Digital, accelerating international expansion and product development. In 2020, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, it developed the first Monero tracing tool, providing law enforcement with visual analysis of privacy coin transactions and significantly enhancing regulatory oversight of darknet illegal activities. In June 2021, it raised $27.1 million in a Series B round, bringing total funding to $42.1 million. In September of the same year, it was acquired by Mastercard, integrating its digital asset compliance capabilities with the payment network's security solutions and promoting the mainstream adoption of crypto assets. These milestones established CipherTrace's technical leadership in blockchain forensics and compliance, making it a key part of industry infrastructure.
In March 2026 Mastercard launched a Crypto Partner Program bringing more than 100 crypto-native companies, payment providers and financial institutions into one enterprise network, with CipherTrace supplying onchain intelligence and risk signals.
The same year CipherTrace was nominated in the blockchain category of the 2026 World AI Awards, recognised for combining address data with entity intelligence across more than 900 crypto assets for banks, exchanges, regulators and investigators, covering transaction attribution, anti-money laundering and sanctions screening. Crypto Secure, launched in 2022, lets issuers assess exchange risk before authorising purchases, and Mercado Libre's Brazilian crypto business uses the same controls.
CipherTrace embeds onchain intelligence in stablecoin settlement and tokenised payment compliance, extends cross-chain and cross-jurisdiction attribution, and uses AI to surface suspicious patterns faster.
Dave Jevans — Co-founder & CEO; serial entrepreneur in cybersecurity and cryptography, previously founded IronKey, Receipt.com and Marble Security, holds 26 US patents; became EVP at Mastercard after the 2021 acquisition.
Stephen Ryan — Co-founder & COO, responsible for company operations.
Shannon Holland — Co-founder & CTO, leading blockchain analytics technology.