KYC — know your customer — establishes who a customer is through identity documents, verification and ownership data, normally once at onboarding. KYT — know your transaction — screens what that customer's money is connected to, every time it moves. They answer different questions, and passing one says nothing about the other: a fully verified customer can still deposit funds that came from a ransomware wallet.
Most of the crypto incidents that cost a business money are not identity failures. The customer was real, the documents were genuine, the account was properly opened — and the coins that arrived had come through a darknet market four days earlier. Identity verification cannot see that, because it never looks at the chain.
The reverse gap is just as real. An address check tells you what money has touched; it does not tell you who holds the keys. Neither control covers the other's blind spot, which is why supervised firms run both and why P2P traders, who carry no KYC obligation at all, still need the transaction side.
| KYC | KYT | |
|---|---|---|
| Question answered | Who is this person or company? | Where has this money been, and where is it going? |
| When it runs | At onboarding, then on review triggers | On every transfer, at the moment it moves |
| What it reads | Documents, identity data, ownership structure | Blockchain addresses, transaction history, counterparty intelligence |
| Typical outcome | Approved, rejected, escalated to enhanced due diligence | A verdict and a recommendation on one specific transfer |
| Blind spot | Says nothing about the origin of the funds | Says nothing about who holds the keys |
A result is the KYT half. It names the verdict, the recommendation and the drivers, and where the counterparty address is attributed it names the service or actor behind it. It does not identify an individual, and it does not need the counterparty's identity documents to run.
For a one-off counterparty, the Telegram bot answers in seconds, free, three checks a day. For a desk, the workspace turns the same result into a case with an owner, a queue you can filter by category, and a signed report that sits in the customer file next to the identity documents.
No. If you are a supervised firm, identity verification is a separate obligation, and no amount of transaction screening satisfies it. They cover different failure modes.
No. Screening reads the public chain. You do not need the counterparty's identity, their documents or their permission to check the address they gave you.
KYC at onboarding, KYT from the first transfer and every transfer after it. The order matters less than the fact that the second one never stops.
Also available in: · · ·
Know your business verifies a corporate customer — registration, directors, beneficial owners. It sits on the KYC side of the line, and the transaction side still applies to everything the company sends and receives.
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.