Strict Liability. No Intent Required. No Excuses Accepted.

OFAC Shield Insights

Sanctions compliance for autonomous systems. Legal analysis, technical deep-dives, and case studies for teams building the agent economy.

Must ReadLegal

Strict Liability and AI Agents: Why Your Code Could Send You to Prison

OFAC sanctions are strict liability offenses. Intent doesn't matter. If your autonomous trading bot sends $1 to a sanctioned wallet, you're personally liable for up to $20M in fines and 30 years in federal prison.

Rebecca Torres

General Counsel

Dec 5, 202512 min read

$4.3B

Largest OFAC Fine

Binance, 2023

30 Years

Max Prison Sentence

Willful Violations

100+

SDN Updates/Year

Real-time risk

Intent Required

Strict liability

Compliance

What Tornado Cash Means for Every DeFi Protocol

The OFAC sanctioning of Tornado Cash wasn't just about one mixer. It established that protocols themselves—not just users—can be sanctioned. Here's what that means for your smart contracts.

Marcus Webb

Dec 3, 20258 min read

Engineering

How We Built Sub-50ms Sanctions Screening

A technical deep-dive into our edge-deployed SDN matching infrastructure that validates counterparties faster than an HFT trade executes.

Alex Chen

Dec 1, 202515 min read

AI Agents

The $200B Compliance Gap in Autonomous AI

By 2030, AI agents will control $200B+ in autonomous transactions. Not a single regulatory framework addresses how they should handle sanctions screening.

Dr. Sarah Lin

Nov 28, 202510 min read

Legal

Binance's $4.3B Fine: Lessons for Every Crypto Company

The largest sanctions enforcement action in history wasn't about intent—it was about inadequate compliance systems. Don't make the same mistake.

Rebecca Torres

Nov 25, 20257 min read

Engineering

Integrating OFAC Shield with Model Context Protocol

A step-by-step guide to making your AI agents sanctions-aware using MCP and our validator node infrastructure.

James Liu

Nov 22, 202520 min read

Case Studies

Case Study: How a Top-10 HFT Firm Eliminated Sanctions Risk

They were executing 50,000 trades per second. Manual compliance was impossible. Here's how they integrated real-time OFAC validation without adding latency.

Michael Reeves

Nov 18, 20256 min read

Compliance

OFAC Updates the SDN List 100+ Times Per Year. Are You Keeping Up?

Most compliance systems check the SDN list daily. OFAC updates it multiple times per week. That gap is where violations happen.

Marcus Webb

Nov 15, 20255 min read

AI Agents

Who Goes to Prison When an AI Agent Violates Sanctions?

Your agent is autonomous. Your liability isn't. A legal analysis of how current sanctions law applies to AI-executed transactions.

Rebecca Torres

Nov 10, 202514 min read

Compliance

Every Stablecoin Transaction is a Sanctions Liability

USDC, USDT, PYUSD—every mint, burn, and transfer involves counterparty risk. Here's why stablecoin issuers are our fastest-growing customer segment.

Dr. Sarah Lin

Nov 5, 20259 min read

Engineering

Design Patterns for Sanctions-Compliant Smart Contracts

How to architect DeFi protocols that validate counterparties on-chain before accepting deposits or executing swaps.

Alex Chen

Nov 1, 202518 min read

AI Agents

When Agents Trade With Agents: The New Compliance Frontier

In the coming agent economy, AI systems will transact with each other autonomously. Neither side has a human to review compliance. Both sides need OFAC Shield.

Michael Reeves

Oct 28, 202511 min read

Compliance

Secondary Sanctions: The Hidden Risk in Cross-Border Payments

You didn't transact with a sanctioned entity. But your counterparty did. Now you're exposed to secondary sanctions. Here's how to protect yourself.

Marcus Webb

Oct 25, 20258 min read

Stay Compliant. Stay Free.

Weekly updates on sanctions enforcement, regulatory changes, and compliance strategies for autonomous systems. Don't let a single transaction put you at risk.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Your data is never shared.