Real-time Bitcoin analytics startup Coinalytics have launched Blockstem API, a service which allows customers to query the Bitcoin blockchain and unveil hidden relationships.

While open to everyone, the API will be particularly appealing to companies and organizations looking to find ways to beef up their fraud detection and compliance monitoring, and can also be used to trace fraudulent transactions after they have taken place.

“Fields like compliance and anti-money laundering are currently our main focus, since that’s where we get most requests from the industry” Cofounder and CEO of Coinalytics Fabio Federici said in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE. “In the future we will be eager to explore what other questions we can answer with our tools.”

Using the system that is now powering the publicly available API, the Coinalytics team has so far been able to visualize blockchain data on the collapse of Bitcoin exchange MintPal, as well as tracking incidents around the darknet illegal drugs bazaar Silk Road 2.0; the data in both cases is publicly available on the Coinalytics blog.

Based in San Francisco, Coinalytics graduated from the 500 Startups startup accelerator in July 2014, with a seed round of $100,000. The company has since raised an additional $100,000 via convertible note.

It’s a smart solution for the Bitcoin community at a time serious money is flowing into the market via way of venture capital. As we’ve covered here at SiliconANGLE time and time again despite the best intentions of many in the space, there are still a range of nefarious players that are in the Bitcoin marketplace to do nothing more than to steal and defraud.

Tools like the Coinalytics API can help everyone from forensic accountants through to law enforcement track the movements of these crooks and hopefully bring them to justice.

Details on how to use the Blockstem API can be found here.