Scam Alert is an anti blockchain crime initiative created by Whale Alert, a popular blockchain tracker and analytics company and offers an API for address checking for over 100,000 scam addresses. The Scam Alert database consists of addresses collected from several sources, including the FCA and Trade.gov. The scam database is updated daily and is curated, meaning that every submitted address is filtered for spam and is evaluated either manually or through advanced heuristics resulting in a very accurate database with very limited numbers of false positives or negatives.
The Scam Alert API is used to check the sending address of incoming payment for relations to known blockchain scams and to prevent outgoing payments from going to known or suspected scam addresses. The reporting API is used for bulk reporting scams directly to Scam Alert.
The Scam Alert APIs require an API key which need to be included in every request. API keys are available to users with an active subscription and are API version dependent and cannot be shared with other users. Trial keys can be requested via e-mail.
API access pricing is dependent of the subscription type and call volume: either metered or a monthly subscription. For more information, please contact us.
The Whale Alert Terms and Conditions apply to the usage of the Scam Alert APIs described in these docs.
The Scam Alert API is used to check blockchain addresses for involvement in scams and sanctions. In case an address is present in the Scam Alert database, the API will provide information such as scam type, related websites, risk and more. The API can be used to check the sending addresses for incoming transactions for AML purposes, but can also be used to check outgoing addresses when processing customer withdrawals. The Scam Alert API is mainly intended for use by exchanges and compliance providers, but other use cases are also possible.
Disclaimer: dozens of new scams are created daily and some are never reported or are reported after the scam was active. This means that despite being one of the largest databases available, it cannot be guaranteed that it contains all scam addresses.
Standard API access is limited to a maximum of 60 calls per minute. Rate limits may vary depending on subscription.
The Scam Alert API is only accessible with an API key which needs be provided by Whale Alert. The API key needs to be added as a parameter to every request as shown below. See Getting Started on how to obtain a key.
?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY or &api_key=YOUR_API_KEYAll endpoints can be accessed through the base URL below.
https://api.scam-alert.ioEndpoint responses are in JSON format.
Returns details for a specific address. The endpoint does not take a specific blockchain parameter. For cloned blockchains such as Polygon, Avalanche etc. the reported address is considered to be owned by the same entity, meaning that if an address is considered related to a scam on Ethereum, this is also the case for the address on Polygon and Avalanche.
GET https://api.scam-alert.io/address/0x6ceaeb05efeb98e41b36daebc8d3f80699719701?api_key=API_KEY| Type | Description | JSON key | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Address | string | The requested blockchain address hash. | 'address' |
| Status | string | Returns "found" if the address is contained in the database, else it returns "not in database". | 'status' |
| Blockchains | [ ]string | The blockchains on which this address is a valid address. Note that this does not mean that the address is active on these blockchains, nor that the provided list is exhaustive. | 'blockchains' |
| Score | int | The scam score of an address with 100 being the highest and 0 the lowest. The score 100 is only given to manually confirmed addresses, while undetermined addresses receive a score of 50. | 'score' |
| Scam Types | [ ]string | The type of scam the address is connected to. A scam can have multiple different types. Types include: "sextortion", "ransomware", "theft", "malware", "wallet", "token", "sanctioned", "terrorism", "darkweb", "investment", "giveaway", "exchange", "tumbler", "ico", and "other". | 'scam_types' |
| Active | boolean | Returns 'true' if the address is currently active. An address is considered active if it has received or sent payments during the past 7 days. | 'active' |
| Report Count | int | The number of times the address has been reported. | 'report_count' |
| First Report | string | The timestamp at which the first report for the address was received. | 'first_report' |
| Payments Received | int | The number of incoming payments for the address. | 'payments_received' |
| Total Earnings | float | The total of the lifetime earnings in USD for the address. | 'total_earnings_usd' |
| First Payment Received | string | The timestamp at which the first payment to the address was received. | 'first_payment_received' |
| Last Payment Received | string | The timestamp at which the last payment to the address was received. | 'last_payment_received' |
{
"address": "0x6ceaeb05efeb98e41b36daebc8d3f80699719701",
"blockchains": [
"ethereum",
"polygon",
"avalanche"
],
"score": 100,
"scam_types": [
"investment"
],
"active": true,
"report_count": 2,
"first_report": "2023-02-24T03:51:59Z",
"payments_received": 238,
"total_earnings": 3329354.73,
"last_payment_received": "2023-02-24T03:51:59Z",
"first_payment_received": "2023-02-24T03:51:59Z",
"related_websites" [
"investment-scam.com",
"give-away-elon.com"
],
}
{"error": "not found"}