Chainlink announced the launch of an Automated Compliance Engine (ACE) — a unified and modular standard to solve all on-chain compliance problems and bring institutional capital on-chain. Built on the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) and designed to support both traditional and decentralized finance, ACE enables the creation of compliance-focused digital assets and services across public and private blockchains.
Chainlink ACE addresses compliance challenges by introducing a modular, privacy-preserving framework that integrates existing identity systems with on-chain infrastructure and supports on-chain and offchain policy enforcement.
Chainlink ACE is launching in collaboration with multiple market participants, including Apex Group, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), and the ERC-3643 Association. Now in early access for select institutions, Chainlink ACE unlocks critical compliance-focused use cases for on-chain finance, such as reusable digital identities, automated policy enforcement, cross-chain compliant-enabled digital asset settlement, regulated asset usage in DeFi protocols, and more.
“We welcome the integration of the vLEI into Chainlink’s Automated Compliance Engine as a powerful example of how verifiable organizational identity can enhance compliance across blockchain ecosystems. As regulatory expectations evolve in both digital and traditional finance, we encourage all financial institutions to explore with their solution providers how adopting the vLEI can strengthen trust, interoperability, and auditability in their compliance frameworks,” said Alexandre Kech, CEO of GLEIF, in a statement
Current compliance processes in traditional finance are often fragmented, siloed, and costly—resulting in billions of dollars in onboarding costs for institutional investors. Institutions are required to manage complex identity verification, risk monitoring, and reporting processes, often duplicating efforts across counterparties. This increases costs, reduces margins, and lengthens onboarding times. Initial attempts to improve compliance processes and extend them on-chain have relied on bespoke integrations, manual procedures, or static allowlists—all of which fall short of the scale, flexibility, and privacy needed for regulated blockchain-based finance. As such, there are no on-chain standards for KYC/AML enforcement and other compliance mechanisms.
“Having recently acquired Tokeny, Apex Group’s collaboration with Chainlink marks yet another milestone in our journey to bring compliance-focused digital asset infrastructure to institutional markets. Chainlink’s technology, combined with our existing tokenization and on-chain finance capabilities, will set the standard for compliance on DLT,” said Zion Hilelly, chief product officer of Apex Group, in a statement.
Institutions can leverage Chainlink ACE to enforce policy rules directly within smart contracts, verify credentials like KYC/AML without exposing personal data, and coordinate identity attestations across blockchains and jurisdictions. The architecture also enables compliance logic to be reusable, upgradeable, and enforceable across any combination of token standards, execution environments, or legal jurisdictions. As a result, onboarding costs and operational complexity could be drastically reduced, while improving compliance reliability and scalability as institutions can reuse compliance workflows and systems they already operate.
“Reusable on-chain identities over CCID [cross-chain identify], fine-grained policy controls through smart contracts, and automated compliance across chains and jurisdictions is the next stage of both the compliance industry and the blockchain industry.” said Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, in a statement.