Chainalysis and TRM each own a headline crime figure. Merkle has the data and an archive of 393 posts, and the last annual hacks report came out in May 2024. This page reads that archive, tests a report format on live 2026 data, and maps the JD to a plan.
Rivals raised large rounds in 2026 and publish a crime figure every January. Merkle's thesis, predictive and behavior-based detection, is strong and under-published: its best 2026 proof point (flagging the Bitget outflows early) lives only in a social post.
The archive is a strong base: 100 posts in 2024, a named-byline Hack Track series and 2025 MiCA and UK guides. What is missing is a recurring flagship, fresh regulation coverage for 2026, and the technical SEO that lets 393 posts rank.
Revive HackHub as a quarterly series that builds to a January annual. Turn each big incident into a dated write-up within 72 hours. Refresh four stale regulation pages and fix structured data across the blog.
The one line: publish Merkle's own number on a fixed calendar, and make every big hack a citable page within three days.
Founded 2018 by Mriganka Pattnaik (CEO, ex-Luno) and Nirmal AK (CTO, ex-PayPal). Series A of over $24M, last extended Aug 2022, co-led by BECO, Darrow (Susquehanna) and K3. Offices in New York, Singapore, Bangalore and London.
| Product | What it does | Content it should feed |
|---|---|---|
| Compass | Transaction screening and wallet monitoring; behavior-based rules beyond blacklists; alerts and case management. | Typology explainers, rule-of-the-month posts, false-positive guides |
| Tracker | Forensic tracing across chains and bridges; investigator support and fund recovery. | Hack Track write-ups with fund-flow graphs |
| KYBB | Due diligence on crypto businesses: onchain exposure plus licences and controls. | VASP risk reports by country |
| Onchain Pulse | Ecosystem monitoring for L1 foundations (Hedera, Stellar, Sui, Polkadot). | Co-branded ecosystem safety reports |
| Institute | Certifications: MiCAR, advanced AML/CFT, crypto investigator. | Regulatory guides that funnel to courses |
| Partnerships | Mastercard Crypto Partner Program (Mar 2026); Staging Labs acquisition (Jun 2024); Travel Rule via Notabene and Sumsub. | Stablecoin and payments compliance content |
Sources: merklescience.com product pages, funding announcements (Sep 2021, Aug 2022), Mastercard and Staging Labs posts.
How blockchain transaction monitoring works, each product, the funding history, certifications, Merkle against Chainalysis, TRM, Elliptic and Crystal, and a checklist for evaluating an analytics vendor. Written as a sample of long-form work for this role. Verified 1 Oct 2026.
In this category the research report is the marketing. Each rival owns a recurring asset that press and regulators quote.
| Firm | Capital | Flagship research | Headline it owns | Opening for Merkle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chainalysis | $170M Series F (2022) at $8.6B | Annual Crypto Crime Report, mid-year updates | At least $154B illicit in 2025; stablecoins 84% | Speed: a quarterly cadence beats one January report |
| TRM Labs | $70M at $1B (Feb 2026); $2B valuation (Sep 2026) | Crypto Crime Report, policy trackers | $158B illicit in 2025 | APAC depth: Singapore and Bangalore desks |
| Elliptic | $120M Series D (May 2026) | Typologies reports, cross-chain crime | DPRK and cross-chain laundering | Behavior-based detection is a distinct story |
| Crystal Intelligence | Bitfury-backed | Annual hacks and scams report | The hacks annual | HackHub had this lane first |
| Merkle Science | Over $24M Series A | HackHub (last May 2024), Hack Track series, 2025 MiCAR and UK guides | None current | Revive HackHub, attach the predictive thesis to every incident |
Sources: Chainalysis 2026 Crypto Crime Report (via The Block), TRM 2026 Crypto Crime Report, Fortune (TRM valuation, Sep 2026), PYMNTS (Elliptic, May 2026), Decrypt (Chainalysis 2022), Merkle funding posts.
A writer's first job is knowing the archive. I crawled every post in the sitemap and dated each one.
posts in 2024, the peak year. June to September ran 13 to 17 a month.
2026 posts are Hack Tracks. The format works and has named authors.
regulation posts in 2026, in the year of MiCA transition deadlines and GENIUS Act rules.
posts carry a canonical tag or Article structured data.
| Strength to build on | Evidence | How I would use it |
|---|---|---|
| A proven hacks format | HackHub 2024: $3.3B lost in 2023, private key compromise 56% of losses. Hack Track posts through Sep 2026. | Roll Hack Tracks into a quarterly HackHub |
| Early-warning claims | Merkle posted that its monitoring flagged the Bitget outflows first (25 Sep 2026). | A dated write-up with the alert timeline |
| Regulatory guides with authors | EU MiCAR Guide 2025, UK Regulatory Guide 2025. | Living country hubs with changelogs |
| A busy events calendar | Merkle Meets in DC, Paris, Miami, Amsterdam, Palo Alto, Rio and Singapore in 2026. | One recap post and one quote card set per event |
A first pass at the quarterly format on public DefiLlama data, 1 Jan to 1 Oct 2026. The demo regenerates every figure live for any period.
| Finding | Data | Story angle |
|---|---|---|
| Keys and bridges lead | Key compromise $704M (31%); bridge and cross-chain $696M (31%). | Signing-layer security decides as much as contract code |
| Fewer giants, more small hits | Recorded incidents rose to 284 from 111; the median fell by half. | Read with care: the dataset logs more small incidents each year |
| One event moves the year | Bitget on 24 Sep: DefiLlama lists $387M; Bitget's disclosure, as reported, puts it near $351.6M. | State which figure and why. Reports earn trust on method notes |
| Exchanges are back in the frame | CEX targets took 18% of losses from two incidents. | Hot-wallet controls for VASP compliance teams |
Data: DefiLlama hacks, pulled 1 Oct 2026. Amounts are DefiLlama estimates and change as recoveries are reported. Scams, ransomware and sanctions flows sit outside this dataset; Merkle's attribution data would add where the funds went.
| JD duty | How I would do it | Detailed in |
|---|---|---|
| Technical analysis and charting of crypto, blockchain and RegTech markets | Charts built from data, with the method beside every chart. The demo shows the pattern: monthly losses, attack class, chain, target, year on year. | §03, demo |
| Content recommendations through market research reports | A one-page monthly memo to marketing: what moved, what to publish, which pages to refresh. | §05 |
| Forecast crypto and RegTech trends | Run-rate forecasts shown with and without the largest incident, and a regulatory calendar of dated deadlines. | §03, §05 |
| Data-backed analytical articles | Every big incident gets a dated write-up within 72 hours, citing Merkle's own alert timeline where it exists. | §05 |
| Research reports from internal data | HackHub returns as a quarterly series and a January annual. One headline number, a methods appendix, a press kit. | §05 |
| SEO best practice | Article schema, canonicals, title and meta standards, refreshed regulation pages, internal links from each Hack Track to its product page. | §06 |
One flagship, five series. Each series fits a product Merkle sells.
| Piece | Angle and data | Cadence | Product | Primary query |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HackHub 2026 | Q3 report in October, annual in January. Losses by class, chain and target, plus laundering paths from Merkle's graph. | Quarterly + annual | Tracker, Compass | crypto hacks 2026 |
| DPRK exchange playbook | Bybit (Feb 2025) to Bitget (Sep 2026): laundering stages side by side, with an address list. | Once, then updated | Tracker | lazarus group crypto laundering |
| After Huione | Where guarantee-marketplace flows moved after the FinCEN rule and Telegram removals. APAC story told from Singapore. | Once, then updated | Compass | huione guarantee |
| Stablecoin issuer controls | Freeze readiness under the GENIUS Act; quarterly count of USDT and USDC freezes. | Quarterly | Onchain Pulse | genius act stablecoin compliance |
| APAC regulatory hub | MAS, MiCA and HKMA side by side, dated, with a changelog. Built for the Singapore Merkle Meet audience. | Living page | Institute, KYBB | singapore crypto regulation 2026 |
| Wallet fraud in 2026 | Address poisoning, drainer kits and EIP-7702 sweeper contracts as behavior patterns a rule engine can flag. | Once, then updated | Compass | address poisoning |
Named distribution partners and outreach targets are in my application materials.
Regulation pages lose rank when the law moves on. Four refreshes and three site fixes come first.
| Page | What changed since | Refresh |
|---|---|---|
| GENIUS Act post (Jun 2025) | Signed into law 18 July 2025. | Update to an implementation explainer |
| Hong Kong stablecoin regime (Jul 2024) | Stablecoins Ordinance in force 1 August 2025. | Retitle from "proposed"; add HKMA licensing |
| Singapore regulation overview (title says 2022) | DTSP regime from 30 June 2025. | Fold into the APAC hub (§05) |
| Tornado Cash card on the monitoring page | OFAC delisted it on 21 March 2025. | Note the delisting and what screening still covers |
Article JSON-LD with author and datePublished, plus a canonical tag, in the blog template. One change covers all 393 posts.
/blog returns 404; the listing lives at /resources. A redirect keeps link equity from anyone who guesses the path.
The counterparty-analysis page says the market touched "$1.18 billion" (trillion). The monitoring-tool page calls Harmony a "$1 billion+" heist; Merkle's own 2022 post says $100M.
A short list of smaller housekeeping items is in my notes, available on request.
| Metric | Why it matters | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Report downloads to demo requests | Marketing is judged on pipeline; reports are the top of it. | HubSpot forms |
| Press and AI-answer citations | A crime figure is worth what others quote. | Media monitoring, AI answer checks |
| Time from incident to published write-up | The first credible page gets the links. | Publish log |
| Organic clicks to regulation pages | Compliance buyers search by country and law. | Search Console |
| Posts per month, by series | A steady calendar compounds. | CMS |
Outside-in, from public data only (public job posting, 2026). The blog count comes from a crawl of every sitemap URL on 1 Oct 2026, dated from each post's byline. Hack figures are live from DefiLlama.
Merkle Science: sitemap · Compass · Tracker · Onchain Pulse · Mastercard program
Funding: Series A (2021) · extension (2022)
Reports: HackHub 2024 · EU MiCAR Guide 2025 · UK Regulatory Guide 2025
Refresh list: GENIUS post · Hong Kong post · Singapore post · counterparty page · monitoring-tool page
Rivals: Chainalysis 2026 report (The Block) · TRM 2026 report · TRM valuation · Elliptic Series D · Chainalysis Series F
Data: DefiLlama hacks · Background: Merkle Science: The Complete Guide for 2026 (my guide on web3wagmi)
Independent homework by Edward Tay for the Merkle Science Content Writer application. Public data only, no confidential Merkle Science information. The demo is my own prototype on public data.