OFAC Crypto FAQs
Answers to common questions about OFAC sanctions and crypto, covering wallet screening and pre-payment checks.
TL;DR
TL;DR: Crypto payments are exposed to OFAC because wallet addresses can be designated. Screen the counterparty address before every send.
Why crypto needs address checks
Crypto moves value through pseudonymous wallet addresses, and OFAC lists specific addresses as blocked property. SanctionsAI indexes 947 OFAC-listed crypto wallets and 19,218 SDN names. Because names do not appear on-chain, screening must compare the address itself against the list, which is exactly what the sanctions_check tool does.
Common questions
- Which addresses get checked? Wallets across Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Tron, synced hourly across 16 jurisdictions.
- How long does a check take? One HTTP call in under 100 ms, so it runs inside the payment path.
- What do results look like? Clean returns ALLOW and flagged returns BLOCK, feeding the SCREEN, SCORE, STOP, STAMP protocol.