Analysis of HTX flows and what they reveal about sanctions exposure in crypto.
Regulators have made one thing clear: defining compliance controls is not enough — institutions must prove those controls actually work in practice. And in digital assets, the moment that matters most is before funds move on-chain.
To help close this gap, Global Ledger’s KYT solution is now integrated into IBM Digital Asset Haven’s policy engine. This allows institutions to evaluate transaction risk and enforce decisions before a transfer is executed.
Key Takeaways
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Global Ledger integrates real-time AML risk scoring into IBM Digital Asset Haven for outbound transfer prescreening.
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IBM Digital Asset Haven provides a unified environment to manage wallets, transactions, and governance policies at scale.
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Compliance teams can now access real-time risk intelligence across a database of 700M+ attributed addresses updated daily.
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Risk checks are applied before transactions are executed, not after funds move on-chain.
Global Ledger & IBM Digital Asset Haven: What the Integration Means
IBM Digital Asset Haven is designed for financial institutions, governments, and enterprises managing digital assets at scale. It combines wallet infrastructure, transaction orchestration, and governance controls into a single platform.
At the center of IBM Digital Asset Haven's compliance architecture is a policy engine — a configurable layer that acts as a gate for transactions before they are executed. Depending on the configuration, a transaction can be blocked or routed through an approval workflow.
Without pre-integrated AML tooling, institutions often rely on separate monitoring pipelines or manual review processes — meaning risks can only be identified after funds have already moved on-chain.
With Global Ledger's KYT solution as one of the third-party integrations within IBM Digital Asset Haven, outbound transfers can now be screened before execution.
How Transaction Risk Is Evaluated
With this integration, IBM Digital Asset Haven users can set up outbound transaction prescreening in their dashboard using a Global Ledger API key. Once configured, our KYT solution evaluates each outbound transfer against the configured policy. This way, the solution:
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Evaluates the destination address in real time.
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Returns a risk score from 0 to 100, based on exposure to sanctions, illicit activity, scams, mixers, hacks, and other high-risk behavior.
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Triggers the institution's configured policy if the score meets or exceeds the defined threshold, or if alerts are returned for the transaction.
Depending on the result, the policy engine can:
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Allow the transaction to proceed.
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Require additional approval. Block the transfer entirely.
No outbound transfer leaves the platform without a scored risk evaluation tied to a predefined policy rule.
How This Integration Supports Compliance Teams
Embedding risk intelligence directly into transaction policies changes how compliance works in practice — from reactive monitoring to real-time control. Here are a few examples of how this integration supports compliance teams in their day-to-day work.
1. Delivering real-time risk checks.
Risk evaluation runs directly inside the transaction flow, with responses delivered in near real time.
With an average response time of approximately 500ms, Global Ledger’s risk scoring integrates seamlessly into IBM Digital Asset Haven’s policy engine without causing significant delays. Transactions can be screened instantly while maintaining the speed expected in modern digital asset operations.
For institutions handling high transaction volumes, this ensures that compliance does not become a bottleneck. Every outbound transfer can be evaluated consistently without slowing down operations.
2. Preventing high-risk transactions.
Risk is assessed at the moment a transaction is created — not after it has already been executed on-chain.
Global Ledger evaluates each transaction using continuously updated intelligence, including exposure to sanctions, darknet activity, mixers, scams, hacks, and other high-risk entities. This allows institutions to detect and stop illicit transfers before funds leave the platform.
Powered by a dataset of 700M+ attributed addresses, the Global Ledger platform provides broad visibility into risk across counterparties and transaction flows. This means compliance teams are not reacting to incidents after the fact — they are preventing them at the only point that truly matters: before execution.
3. Keeping AML checks inside the transaction flow.
Compliance gaps often appear when risk screening happens outside the transaction lifecycle — in a separate tool, a manual queue, or a post-execution review process.
As one of the third-party integrations within IBM Digital Asset Haven, our KYT solution can eliminate that gap. Risk scoring runs inside the transaction flow itself, so there is no need to reconcile outputs from separate systems or build additional infrastructure around it.
Institutions get a single, unified workflow where transaction execution and compliance logic operate together — not in parallel.
Read More
Global Ledger & Dfns Partner to Strengthen AML Controls
This approach is already used across multiple integrations, including our work with DFNS. See how real-time AML intelligence is embedded directly into transaction policies in our partnership with DFNS.
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4. Making compliance decisions auditable and defensible
Regulators require institutions to demonstrate how risk-based decisions are applied in practice — not just that policies exist on paper.
With Global Ledger integrated into IBM Digital Asset Haven, every blocked or escalated transfer is linked to a quantified risk score, a predefined threshold, and a configured policy rule.
Each transaction outcome is supported by a clear and structured set of parameters:
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a risk score,
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defined thresholds,
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alerts (when triggered),
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and a policy-driven action.
This creates a consistent and auditable record of how decisions are made.
For compliance teams, this means having a clear way to demonstrate that controls are not only defined, but actively enforced in real time. Every approval, escalation, or blocked transaction can be traced back to a specific risk signal. This makes it clear why each decision was made.
About Global Ledger
Global Ledger delivers real-time blockchain intelligence that helps institutions identify and manage AML risks.
Our KYT solution continuously analyzes transaction activity, identifying exposure to sanctions, illicit networks, and other high-risk activity before it turns into a compliance issue.
By integrating this intelligence directly into IBM Digital Asset Haven’s policy engine, institutions can assess risk at the exact moment a transaction is initiated. This enables teams to take action early — preventing suspicious or high-risk transfers before they are executed.
Explore how Global Ledger can support your compliance workflows and integrate into your existing infrastructure to enable real-time AML risk checks.
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About IBM Digital Asset Haven
IBM Digital Asset Haven is a platform designed to support secure management of digital asset operations, including wallet management and transaction orchestration.
The platform includes a policy engine that allows institutions to define and enforce transaction rules, along with governance controls and integrations for compliance workflows, including AML.
Conclusion
The direction of regulation in digital assets is clear: compliance frameworks must be able to prove they effectively prevent risks. The moment that matters is before funds move — not after. The integration between Global Ledger and IBM Digital Asset Haven is a direct response to that requirement.
Our KYT and KYB toolsets provide full transaction context, continuously updated AML risk scores, and clear, evidence-based data to support audit readiness. Risk is assessed in real time, allowing teams to act at the exact moment a transaction is initiated.
