Merkle Science

Merkle Science is a Singapore-based predictive crypto risk and blockchain analytics platform serving crypto exchanges, financial institutions, and government agencies.

Core business: The platform consists of two main products. Compass handles real-time transaction monitoring with a behavioral rule engine that flags anomalous on-chain activity. Tracker provides forensic investigation tools for tracing illicit funds across 10,000+ assets and 200+ bridges.

Core differentiator: Unlike traditional attribution-based tools (which map wallets to known entities and only react after illicit activity is recorded), Merkle Science uses predictive analytics. It assesses the probability of future illicit involvement based on behavioral patterns, transaction signatures, and network relationships—before a transaction is even confirmed. The company's pitch: static blacklists are a snapshot, criminals are a movie.

Market pain point: Traditional compliance tools are reactive. They only fire after harmful activity has already happened, by which time funds are often gone. Attribution and exposure scores tell you what already occurred, not what is likely to occur next.

Problem solved: Pre-transaction wallet prescreening via API, post-transaction monitoring with automatic SAR reporting, and a behavioral rule engine that catches anomalies no watchlist has ever seen (rapid fund movements, abnormally large transactions, address dormancy followed by sudden activity).

Recent developments (Mar-Sep 2026): The predictive approach has shown measurable results. In one case, API-based pre-screening blocked 28 high-risk wallets before a single transaction cleared, stopping approximately $3 million in illicit activity—with attribution confirmed only 1-2 weeks later. One layer-one protocol deploying Tracker saw scams reduced by 50%, blacklisted addresses grow from 200 to 14,000 in a year, and TVL grow from $4M to $12.7B over two years. Another L1 received 1.5M+ unique attributions across 80+ typologies in eight months, blocking a nation-state-linked exploit and a major DeFi hack, protecting $2.2B in TVL.