Sanctioned crypto wallets: what the OFAC SDN list is and how addresses are checked
Sanctions lists are the only official source that explicitly names addresses as prohibited. Everything else is labels and heuristics.
Updated October 13, 2026
What OFAC SDN is
OFAC is the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Its SDN (Specially Designated Nationals) list contains people, companies and, since 2018, cryptocurrency addresses that US persons are prohibited from dealing with. In practice most exchanges and payment services worldwide block such addresses to keep access to dollar infrastructure.
Other lists
The service additionally checks the address against OpenSanctions, an aggregator of official sanctions lists from the EU, the UK, the UN, Israel, Japan and other countries, with attribution, sanctions records and links between entities.
How the service uses the lists
- OFAC SDN is loaded from the official export; the number of TRON addresses in the database and the publication date are shown on the "How it works" page.
- OpenSanctions is queried when a snapshot is built.
- An address match is a serious flag weighing 90. A sanctioned wallet among counterparties is a warning weighing 45 (with volume of 1 USDT or more in the observation window).
How sanctions differ from service labels
Besides sanctions, the service uses imported service labels (exchanges, mixers, high-risk venues). Labels are attribution from files without independent verification. They affect the score but are not official sanctions and do not prove ownership or wrongdoing. The report keeps the two kinds of findings apart.
Frequently asked questions
If an address is on OFAC, can I deal with it from outside the US?
Formally, US sanctions bind US persons, but exchanges and banks elsewhere usually block such transactions too. For any licensed institution it is at least grounds for refusal and an internal investigation.
How often is the list updated?
OFAC publishes updates irregularly. The service loads the official export; the publication date of the loaded version is shown on the "How it works" page.
Why isn't an address from the news about sanctions found?
Not every address mentioned in the news is on SDN, only those included in the official export. The service also currently checks TRON addresses only.