U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is increasing its investment in blockchain intelligence technology, alongside other investigative platforms. A notice of intent posted on a government procurement website reveals that this Department of Homeland Security component plans to acquire additional technology from TRM Labs, a company specializing in crypto risk management and offering a wide range of forensic services for government clients. This week, ICE also announced its intention to sole source similar technology from Chainalysis, coinciding with a series of planned acquisitions of other digital forensic tools. Both Chainalysis and TRM Labs hold numerous contracts with federal agencies such as the FBI, the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service.

By declaring the intent to single source technologies from TRM and Chainalysis, ICE signals that no other providers can reasonably offer comparable services. Executives from leading tech companies Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir are joining the Army Reserve as lieutenant colonels to serve in Detachment 201, the new “Executive Innovation Corps, ” the Army announced on Friday. This move represents the latest effort by the department to leverage expertise and capabilities from Silicon Valley and the commercial sector. The new corps “brings top tech talent into the Army Reserve to bridge the commercial-military tech gap” and aims to “fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation, ” according to an Army press release. On Friday, the Army is scheduled to swear in Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth, OpenAI’s chief product officer Kevin Weil, Palantir’s CTO Shyam Sankar, and Bob McGrew, an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former chief research officer at OpenAI. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday through Friday afternoon.