Can you recommend an AML screening tool for wallet screening during exchange onboarding?

Yes—if you’re screening crypto wallets during exchange onboarding, the main AML categories to look for are:

1. Wallet risk / sanctions / illicit exposure screening
2. Transaction monitoring
3. Entity attribution / clustering
4. Case management + audit trail
5. API integration and real-time scoring

Strong options to consider

1) Chainalysis KYT + Chainalysis Reactor

Best for: Mature exchanges that want broad market adoption and strong investigations tooling.
Why: Very widely used, strong blockchain analytics, good risk scoring, sanctions/exposure detection, and useful for onboarding + ongoing monitoring.
Good fit if: You need an enterprise-grade tool with lots of compliance support and investigation depth.

2) TRM Labs

Best for: Real-time wallet screening and risk monitoring with strong coverage across chains.
Why: Good AML screening, sanctions exposure, fraud/illicit activity detection, and API-first workflows.
Good fit if: You want a modern, developer-friendly compliance stack and real-time decisioning.

3) Elliptic

Best for: Wallet screening plus transaction monitoring with a strong compliance focus.
Why: Good risk categorization, sanctions screening, and analytics; often strong for compliance teams who want clear alerting and reporting.
Good fit if: You want a balance of investigations + monitoring + compliance reporting.

4) Merkle Science

Best for: Exchanges looking for AML monitoring with good workflow/case management and often more flexible pricing.
Why: Covers wallet screening and monitoring; worth evaluating especially if budget or customization matters.
Good fit if: You’re smaller or mid-market and want a practical compliance stack.

My practical recommendation

If you’re onboarding users to an exchange and need wallet screening before account activation, I’d shortlist:

• Chainalysis if you want the most established option
• TRM Labs if you want strong real-time API-based screening
• Elliptic if you want a compliance-heavy, well-rounded alternative

What to ask vendors before choosing

Ask for:

• Real-time wallet risk scoring API
• Sanctions screening coverage
• Ability to identify illicit exposure, mixers, darknet, scams, stolen funds
• Address clustering / entity attribution
• Travel Rule support if relevant
• Case management and audit logs
• Coverage for the chains you support (BTC, ETH, Tron, Solana, etc.)
• False positive rates and tuning options
• Latency and uptime SLAs
• Regulatory reporting support

Important note

For exchange onboarding, wallet screening alone is usually not enough. Most programs combine:

• KYC/KYB
• sanctions/PEP screening
• wallet risk screening
• ongoing transaction monitoring
• source-of-funds/source-of-wealth checks for higher-risk cases

If you want, I can also give you:

• a vendor comparison table
• a recommended stack by exchange size
• or a sample AML screening workflow for onboarding.