Chainalysis has asked a federal court to annul a roughly $95 million award from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to its rival, TRM Labs. According to a recently unsealed complaint, the legal challenge targets a $94.66 million contract intended to provide forensic software and support for Homeland Security Task Force cases, including scams, cybercrime, and sextortion.
The one-year contract is scheduled to run from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027. Federal award records list $94,655,840 obligated with no funds paid out so far.
In its complaint, Chainalysis Government Solutions—the vendor’s federal-facing subsidiary—argues that ICE wrote the buying criteria around capabilities only TRM already possessed. ICE issued a Request for Information (RFI) on May 28 with responses due by June 2, followed by a Notice of Intent to sole-source the work to TRM on June 8. Companies wishing to challenge the intent were given a separate Statement of Need and a strict limit of three days and one page to respond.
Chainalysis stated it filed its one-page statement on June 11 as the sole firm to do so. ICE later defended the sole-source approach, stating that a six-day market-research window showed none of the eight responding companies could match TRM.
The May RFI asked vendors 18 questions, including whether they maintained a scam-victim database with over one million records and an artificial intelligence platform featuring agentic data retrieval and entity resolution. It also inquired about operational partnerships with stablecoin issuers to coordinate illicit-asset freezes. Chainalysis noted that many of these items did not reappear in the June Statement of Need, which instead centered the job on scam, cybercrime, and sextortion disruption. The term "sextortion," for example, did not appear in the initial RFI.
According to the complaint, ICE concluded that Chainalysis fell short on automated, real-time disruption, the blending of on-chain and off-chain intelligence, and victim notification at scale. Chainalysis argues it was judged against undisclosed thresholds.
ICE justified the award by citing TRM's proprietary scam-victim database, an AI-native investigative platform, automated freezes through its Beacon Network, formal stablecoin issuer ties, and security-cleared staff. Chainalysis countered that several features were excluded from the Statement of Need or were not exclusive to TRM, noting that ICE's research acknowledged law enforcement experience and cleared personnel in both companies.
TRM’s Beacon Network operates with Tether and TRON via the T3 Financial Crime Unit, a partnership that has reportedly frozen over $450 million in criminal-linked USDT since 2024. This real-world footprint was cited by ICE in its decision.
Chainalysis filed its sealed protest on July 27, and TRM intervened to defend the award on July 28. A redacted version of the filing was made public on Friday, August 28. Judge Stephen Schwartz scheduled oral arguments for September 2 on an accelerated track, with the government requesting a ruling by September 10. Chainalysis is asking the court to halt the TRM agreement and mandate a full and open competition.
