Sanctions Screening a Bitcoin Cluster

Core idea

Before publishing any Bitcoin cluster findings, check the addresses against sanctions lists. For commercial/compliance work, a sanctions hit is itself the headline finding, it does not need further tracing to be actionable.

Components

• OFAC SDN list: contains sanctioned crypto addresses; U.S. Treasury maintains machine-readable formats.
• UK OFSI list: UK sanctions, including crypto addresses published alongside entity designations.
• EU consolidated list: partial coverage; national regulators extend it.

When to use

Before publishing cluster findings, and as a standard step in commercial due-diligence / compliance screening of Bitcoin (or other) addresses.

Example

A due-diligence check on a counterparty’s disclosed wallets returns an OFAC SDN match, that hit is the deliverable finding, no onward tracing required to justify declining the arrangement.

Related

Bitcoin UTXO Clustering Heuristics, Case Tractability: When to Decline, Post-Mixer Bitcoin Tracing