DFNS now integrates Elliptic, one of the pioneers of blockchain analytics, as a transaction screening provider. Elliptic’s risk intelligence flows directly into the DFNS Policy Engine through the same plumbing that powers our integrations with Chainalysis, Global Ledger, and Scorechain. Institutions choose the intelligence their compliance program trusts, and DFNS enforces it where enforcement actually holds, below the API, before anything signs. This integration covers KYT transaction screening.
Two flows, on both sides of the money
The integration screens in both directions, with a logic simple enough to state in one line each:
- Outbound, before broadcast. When a transfer is initiated, DFNS screens where the funds are going, synchronously, with the result in hand before anything is signed or broadcast. Policies then act: block the transfer outright, hold it for approval with the Elliptic evaluation shown to the approver, or record and proceed. The rule appears in the policy builder as Elliptic Transaction Prescreening the moment the integration is activated.
- Inbound, the moment funds arrive. Incoming transactions are screened for where the funds came from, and results flow through the policy.triggered webhook into your systems as reports, without gating the funds. Your compliance team sees flagged inflows in real time and handles them according to its own procedures, rather than discovering them in next week’s review.
Your Elliptic risk model, enforced as policy
Here is where this integration differs meaningfully from a category checkbox. Elliptic’s risk model is not a set of fixed levels. It returns a numeric risk score computed against your own configured rules, a list of the specific risk rules the transaction triggered, and a breakdown of the exposure behind the evaluation. The DFNS policy builder exposes exactly that model. You set a score threshold above which a policy fires, and, independently, you can name specific rule categories, sanctions, mixers, darknet exposure, that trigger regardless of score.
The result is that the risk appetite your compliance team has already tuned inside Elliptic becomes enforcement inside DFNS, not a translation of it. And when a policy fires, the approver sees the full evaluation, score, triggered rules, and exposure detail, on the approval screen before deciding.
Fail-closed, by design
The most important behavior in a screening integration is what happens when the screener is unreachable. For outbound prescreening, if Elliptic times out, errors, or cannot be reached, our default answer is to hold the transfer and to not broadcast it. Sanctions screening is never silently skipped. The fail mode is configurable, but fail-closed is the default, because a control that quietly disappears under load is not a control. Inbound screening, which gates nothing, fails open with an alert, so operations continue while the gap is visible. The same honesty applies to coverage: on networks where Elliptic screening is not supported, the skip is explicit and logged. Never a silent pass.
Built for the examiner
Every screening leaves an artifact. The Elliptic analysis ID and the full evaluation are persisted against the transfer record and retrievable through both the API and the dashboard, and the webhook carries the complete evaluation for your own systems. When an examiner asks why a specific transfer was cleared, held, or blocked, the answer is the record Elliptic produced at that moment, attached to the transaction it governed. That is the artifact an AML program actually relies on, and it is there by default.
Activation in minutes, native by design
Connecting Elliptic follows the same path as every DFNS compliance integration:
- Open the Elliptic card in the Integrations tab.
- Enter your Elliptic API credentials.
- Activate it.
Credentials are encrypted, every request to Elliptic is individually authenticated, and both rule kinds appear in the policy builder immediately. Screening results tie back to your tenant, wallet, and end-user structure automatically, so Elliptic’s per-customer analytics stay coherent without any mapping work on your side.
At launch, screening covers native and ERC-20 assets on Ethereum, Base, BNB Smart Chain, and Optimism, plus SPL assets on Solana, with the supported list published on the integration card and expanding from there.
One enforcement point, your choice of intelligence
This integration extends the thesis we laid out with Transfer Screening. Intelligence can come from anywhere, and the best feed should win, but enforcement lives in one place, at the platform that signs. Compliance teams standardize on providers for good reasons, methodology fit, coverage, supervisory familiarity, and an operating platform should adapt to that choice rather than dictate it. With Elliptic joining the group of pre-integrated compliance tools for transaction screening and Notabene for Travel Rule, DFNS lets an institution bring the compliance stack it already trusts, enforced natively, with a complete audit trail behind every decision.
Get started
- Learn more about onchain core banking: dfns.co
- Explore the platform and documentation: docs.dfns.co
- Talk to our team about compliance integrations: sales@dfns.co