Exposure is the connection between an address and a named risk category — how its funds relate to sanctions, a darknet market, a mixer, stolen funds, a scam or an unlicensed venue. Direct exposure means the funds moved between the address and the flagged party themselves; indirect exposure means they moved through one or more parties in between. Exposure is what a screening result reports; what to do about it belongs to the desk's policy.
Exposure is the reason a verdict exists at all. Without it a result would be a word with nothing behind it, and a word with nothing behind it cannot be defended to an auditor, argued with a customer, or applied consistently by two different operators.
The distinction that decides most cases is directness. Funds received straight from a designated address are an immediate, documented problem. A connection to a market three parties away is a question, not a verdict — public chains connect almost everything to almost everything if you walk far enough. Both belong in the file, and they call for different conversations.
Exposure also has a direction. Funds arriving from a flagged party and funds sent to one raise different questions: the first is about what you are accepting, the second about where your customer is sending money. Supervisors ask about both.
And it is not a synonym for guilt. Anyone can send coins to any address without asking, so exposure describes a fact about a ledger, not a choice somebody made. Treating it as an accusation is how desks lose customers they should have kept; treating it as nothing is how they end up explaining a payment to a bank.
The result names the category in plain words, states whether the connection is direct or through intermediaries, states the direction, and names the entity where the counterparty is attributed. Nothing in it asks you to interpret a chart.
In the Telegram bot that arrives as one message in seconds, free, three checks a day. In the workspace each category is a filter, so a desk can pull every open case with the same exposure without re-running a single check, and the signed report carries the same words to whoever asked for it.
Direct means funds moved between your counterparty and the flagged party themselves. Indirect means they passed through other parties on the way. Direct exposure is the one that ends discussions.
Your risk policy decides. Funds received directly from a mixer is normally a review; a distant indirect connection through several unrelated parties is common on public chains and is not on its own a reason to refuse a customer.
Yes. Anyone can send funds to your address without your consent, and the exposure exists from the moment they do. That is why checks run at receipt rather than only at onboarding.
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The ledger keeps the record permanently. What a desk manages is its own position: a documented origin, a dated check, and a decision someone can explain.
Send any wallet to the Telegram bot and get a verdict in seconds. Three checks a day, free, no signup. Desks that screen every deposit run it on plans from $199/mo.