Crypto wallet screening: what it catches and misses
Wallet screening sounds like one check. In practice it is three questions, each with a different level of certainty. Firms that treat them as one end up blocking good customers or waving through bad money.
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1. Is the address on an official sanctions list?
An exact match against OFAC / UK / EU data is a legal fact: narrow, and only as fresh as your last list sync.
OFAC, the UK Sanctions List and the EU publish specific cryptocurrency addresses tied to designated persons. This is the strongest signal available, because an exact match against an official list is a legal fact rather than a vendor's opinion. It is also narrow. OFAC's own guidance says its list is not exhaustive, so screening has to re-run whenever lists update, not only once at onboarding. KYTGate re-syncs these lists at least every 6 hours, content-hashes each snapshot so you can prove which version you screened against, and re-screens your past counterparties on the same cadence.
2. Has the stablecoin issuer frozen it?
Tether and Circle freeze addresses at the contract level. Reading that status is free and real-time, so it belongs in every compliance stack.
Tether and Circle can freeze any address at the contract level, and they do so regularly at law-enforcement request. A frozen address is a strong signal that no risk score conveys, because the issuer of the asset has acted. The check is free, real-time and read directly from the blockchain, so a compliance stack has no good reason to skip it.
3. What does analytics attribution say?
Vendor clustering is valuable and probabilistic: a reason to look closer, never the sole basis for calling money dirty.
Commercial vendors cluster addresses into entities (exchanges, mixers, ransomware operators) using proprietary intelligence. This is valuable, and it is probabilistic: a vendor's assessment rather than an official designation. Treat it as a reason to look closer, priced accordingly, and never as the sole basis for telling a customer their money is "dirty". KYTGate plugs these vendors in alongside the hard signals rather than replacing them.
Try it on a real address
The free checker runs the two hard checks on any address across 18 networks, no signup.
Our free wallet sanctions check runs the two hard checks, official list data and live USDT/USDC freeze status, on any address across the 18 supported networks, instantly and without signup. For screening every deposit automatically, with your own policy and signed evidence, start a free sandbox or see plans.
Run these checks on every deposit, automatically
KYTGate screens each crypto deposit and withdrawal against the OFAC, UK and EU lists and the USDT/USDC issuer freezes, decides under your written policy, and keeps a signed record an auditor can check without us.
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