Wallet screening is the check of a single blockchain address against sanctions designations, law-enforcement records and known criminal clusters, returning a verdict on whether to transact with it. It runs on the public chain, so it works on any address you have been handed — a counterparty's, a customer's, or one you are about to pay. It is the smallest unit of crypto AML work and the one a desk repeats most often.
The address is usually the only verifiable fact you have about the other side of a crypto deal. A name can be invented, a chat account is disposable, a platform reputation can be bought — the address has a public history that nobody can edit.
Screening turns that history into a decision you can make in seconds and defend in months. It is also the cheapest control in the stack: no integration to run one, no cooperation from the counterparty, no notification to them that you looked.
The cost asymmetry is what makes it worth doing every time. A check takes seconds. A held deposit takes weeks, a bank asking about your payment flow takes longer, and neither of those clocks starts running until after you have already accepted the money.
The result names the network it read, the verdict word, the recommendation, and the drivers behind them in plain language — sanctions, mixer, darknet market, ransomware, scam, phishing, drainer, stolen funds, high-risk exchange, no-KYC exchange, issuer freeze. Where the address is attributed, the service or actor is named instead of shown as unknown.
Paste an address into the Telegram bot and the answer arrives in seconds, free, three checks a day, no account. In the workspace the same check runs across a list, feeds a case queue you can filter by category, and produces a signed report you can forward to a bank, a counterparty or an auditor. Through the API it sits in front of a deposit before the balance is credited.
Screening answers one question about one address at a point in time. Monitoring keeps answering it across a customer's whole flow, raising alerts as transfers happen.
Sanctuary covers 10 chains at full AML depth and screens 35+ networks. A result always names the network it read, because the same string can exist on more than one chain with different histories.
It names the entity when the address is attributed to a known service or actor — an exchange, a processor, a market. Where there is no attribution, it names what the funds are connected to instead, which is usually what the decision turns on.
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Before every significant settlement, and on a fixed schedule for anything on a watchlist. Lists and attributions change between your checks, not between your deals.
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.