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Merkle Science alternative for Bitcoin compliance data

Merkle Science sells predictive crypto risk scoring. We measured its site, API docs and pricing on 6 September 2026.

Merkle Science scores addresses. BitcoinDatabase indexes the Bitcoin chain so your team can check its own work.

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REST API · SQL · dashboards · indexed since the 2009 genesis block

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informational on-chain data · not financial advice

REST API · SQL · dashboards, one indexed dataset. Querying the indexed Bitcoin blockchain ...

Merkle Science sells a scored compliance verdict across 22 blockchains, delivered through Compass for monitoring and Tracker for investigations. BitcoinDatabase sells the indexed Bitcoin chain underneath that verdict, so a compliance or analytics team can validate the list it screens against, reproduce an alert and keep its own evidence.

Side by side

Merkle Science vs BitcoinDatabase, honestly

A fair look at what each does well. Both are capable tools. Here is where they differ.

What matters	BitcoinDatabase	Merkle Science
Core deliverable	Raw indexed Bitcoin chain you query yourself	Risk scores and entity attribution across many chains
Chain coverage	Bitcoin only, indexed deeply	22 blockchains listed at Full Coverage in the Compass docs
Published pricing	Usage-based plans, published, no free plan	None. Nine product and pricing paths we tried returned 404
How you start	Self-serve signup and an API key	Book a Demo. Every product route runs through sales
API authentication	Bearer key, documented, self-issued	X-API-KEY header, key issued inside a Compass workspace
Machine-readable docs	REST and SQL reference on one host	llms.txt, OpenAPI 3.1.0 and .md on every page, genuinely strong
Risk scoring	No score. Chain facts for your own review	Yes, predictive risk scoring is the product
Entity attribution dataset	Labels only, narrower	Attribution Knowledge Base plus custom taxonomy, a real strength
Investigations workspace	None. Data layer only	Tracker, cases, alerts and downloadable PDF reports
Compliance stack integrations	None built in	Unit21, Fireblocks, Sumsub and Utila, a genuine advantage
Custom SQL over raw chain	Yes, on Growth and above	Not offered; you consume the assessment
Best suited for	Teams that must reproduce and audit their own checks	Regulated teams buying a defensible third-party verdict

Comparison reflects general, publicly understood positioning. Capabilities change, so check each product for the latest.

Why teams pick BitcoinDatabase

The fully indexed Bitcoin blockchain, queryable by REST, SQL and dashboards

Nine paths, nine 404s, and what that tells you about the buying process

On 6 September 2026 we tried the obvious product and pricing routes on merklescience.com. The homepage answered HTTP 200. Nine other paths, including pricing, products, compass, tracker, kybb, institute, onchain-pulse and blog, all returned 404. The only route forward on the site is Book a Demo. That is a normal enterprise motion and it is not a criticism, but it is a planning fact: you cannot scope a Merkle Science integration from a browser tab, and you should budget for a procurement cycle rather than a card payment. BitcoinDatabase publishes its plans so you can price the data layer before any call.

Their documentation is better than most, and worth saying so

Merkle Science does something most compliance vendors do not. docs.merklescience.com is fully public, serves an llms.txt index, publishes OpenAPI 3.1.0 definitions, and returns a Markdown version of any page if you append .md to the URL. We read the whole API surface without an account. If you are evaluating vendors, that alone shortens the work, because you can see the Compass request and response shapes before you sign anything. Credit where it is due.

The Compass API scores your entities, it does not hand you the chain

Reading the reference makes the shape clear. The address endpoint is Create or View, which creates or retrieves a risk assessment for an address, optionally linked to a customer with type 1 for a deposit address and type 2 for a withdrawal address. The same pattern repeats for customers and transactions, alongside alerts, cases and PDF report downloads. That is a compliance workflow API, and it is well built for that job. What it is not is a chain index: you cannot ask it for a block, a UTXO set, a script type distribution or a balance at a past height. Those are the questions BitcoinDatabase answers.

The list underneath any screening tool is still yours to validate

We re-parsed the OFAC SDN file on 6 September 2026 and checksum-validated every identifier typed as a Bitcoin address. The file still carries publish date 09/04/2026 and record count 19,329, and it holds 534 XBT entries covering 532 unique valid addresses, unchanged from our 4 September baseline. Of those 532, there are 208 P2PKH, 177 P2SH and 146 native SegWit addresses, and not one Taproot address. So a screening pipeline that only normalizes base58 silently skips 27.4 percent of the list. No vendor layer above the data fixes an ingestion bug below it, which is why holding the raw chain and the raw list matters.

Good questions

Merkle Science vs BitcoinDatabase, answered

Merkle Science does not publish a price. On 6 September 2026 we requested merklescience.com/pricing and it returned HTTP 404, as did eight other product and pricing paths we tried. Pricing comes through a demo and is typically scoped by product, seats and volume. BitcoinDatabase publishes usage-based plans you can read before you speak to anyone.

No, and claiming otherwise would be misleading. Merkle Science delivers predictive risk scores, multi-chain entity attribution, an investigations workspace and compliance integrations that a data API does not replicate. BitcoinDatabase replaces the part of the job where you need raw Bitcoin chain data to build, test or evidence your own checks. Plenty of teams run both.

Yes, and the documentation is public even though the API is key-gated. Requests authenticate with an X-API-KEY header over HTTPS only, and keys are issued from workspace settings inside the Compass app. The docs at docs.merklescience.com are readable without an account and include OpenAPI 3.1.0 definitions for the customer, address, transaction, alert and case endpoints.

The Compass documentation, last updated 22 April 2026, lists 22 blockchains at Full Coverage: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Bitcoin SV, Dogecoin, Zilliqa, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, Tron, Cardano, Polkadot, Stellar, Hedera, Cronos, Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, Linea, Aleo and VerifiedX. Each request carries a numeric blockchain code, and Bitcoin is code 0.

Several things, and they are real. Coverage across 22 chains against our one, predictive risk scoring that we deliberately do not offer, an attribution knowledge base with custom taxonomy, a full investigations and case workspace in Tracker, direct integrations with Unit21, Fireblocks, Sumsub and Utila, and a training arm in Merkle Science Institute. If you need a defensible third-party verdict, that is what you are buying.

All three sell a scored compliance verdict, and the choice usually comes down to chain coverage, existing integrations and what your examiner already recognizes. None of them publishes pricing, so run them as a parallel procurement rather than sequentially. Our comparisons of Chainalysis, TRM Labs and Elliptic cover the same ground, and the raw-index argument on this page applies equally to all four.

You can query any address you hold against the indexed chain for balance, transaction history, UTXOs, script type and flows, and surface labels and signals for your own review. What BitcoinDatabase does not do is issue an accusation, a deanonymization or a compliance verdict on your behalf. That judgment stays with your team and your policy.

No. BitcoinDatabase provides informational on-chain data and analytics only, not investment, financial or legal advice. Compliance decisions stay with your team. Product facts about other vendors were measured on the dates stated and can change without notice, so verify before you sign.

Explore the data

The Bitcoin data you can query here

Bitcoin address labels

Attach exchange, miner and service labels to addresses, so raw hashes read as entities.

Explore

Bitcoin API

Query addresses, transactions and balances across the whole indexed chain in one call.

Explore

Query the Bitcoin blockchain with SQL

Write plain SQL against the whole indexed chain, no node, no ETL.

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Crypto AML API

Risk signals, exposure and entity labels to support your compliance review.

Explore

More comparisons

See how BitcoinDatabase compares

vs Glassnode

Glassnode alternative

Raw queryable Bitcoin data over REST, SQL and dashboards, not just curated charts.

vs Dune

Dune alternative

Bitcoin-only and fully-indexed, with a REST API too, not just cross-chain SQL.

vs Blockchair

Blockchair alternative

Bitcoin-deep with every UTXO, entity labels, metrics, SQL and dashboards.

vs Chainalysis

Chainalysis alternative

Developer-first, self-serve on-chain data with compliance tooling to support your own review.

vs BlockCypher

BlockCypher alternative

Bitcoin-native depth with SQL and dashboards, not just a multi-chain REST API.

vs Chainstack

Chainstack alternative

Indexed Bitcoin data over REST and SQL, not raw RPC nodes you still have to query.

vs Blockchain.com

Blockchain.com API alternative

Production-grade indexed Bitcoin data over REST and SQL, not a rate-capped free explorer API.

vs Mempool.space

Mempool.space alternative

Indexed address, balance and history data over REST and SQL, alongside mempool and fees, on production plans.

vs CoinAPI

CoinAPI alternative

On-chain Bitcoin data: addresses, balances, UTXOs and labels, not cross-asset market prices.

vs TRM Labs

TRM Labs alternative

Bitcoin-native on-chain data and screening signals over REST and SQL, not a full multi-chain investigations suite.

vs Whale Alert

Whale Alert alternative

Query large bitcoin transactions on your own thresholds from the fully-indexed chain, not just a fixed real-time feed.

vs CoinGecko

CoinGecko alternative

Raw on-chain Bitcoin data over REST and SQL, not market prices across thousands of coins.

vs CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap alternative

On-chain Bitcoin data over REST and SQL, where CoinMarketCap serves market prices.

vs Blockdaemon

Blockdaemon alternative

A query-first indexed Bitcoin database over REST and SQL, not raw node RPC infrastructure.

vs Xverse

Xverse alternative

Query indexed ordinals, inscriptions, BRC-20 and Runes data over REST and SQL, not just wallet and minting endpoints.

vs BigQuery

BigQuery alternative

Balances, entity labels and fund flows already indexed, without per-terabyte scan billing.

vs Bitquery

Bitquery alternative

Bitcoin-only depth over REST and SQL, billed on calls rather than on points that move with query shape.

vs TimechainIndex

TimechainIndex alternative

Bitcoin-only like TimechainIndex, with published pricing and a commercial REST API.

vs CryptoQuant

CryptoQuant alternative

API access on the entry plan and the raw chain underneath, not day-resolution metrics.

vs Alchemy

Alchemy alternative

An indexed Bitcoin database you query by address, not a Bitcoin Core JSON-RPC passthrough.

vs QuickNode

QuickNode alternative

An indexed Bitcoin database you query by address, not a managed Core node with the address-capable calls switched off.

vs Hiro

Hiro alternative

Hiro retired its Bitcoin Layer 1 APIs. The endpoints now answer HTTP 410 Gone, and the migration link inside that answer is itself dead.

vs Amberdata

Amberdata alternative

Amberdata belongs to Kaiko as of June 2026. Its pricing page loads but publishes no number, and its API answers a missing key three different ways.

vs Elliptic

Elliptic alternative

Elliptic publishes no pricing and its screening API needs a sales conversation. We measured its endpoints, and the OFAC list underneath it, on 4 September 2026.

See everything BitcoinDatabase can query

Query the whole Bitcoin blockchain in one place

An address in, structured on-chain data out. BitcoinDatabase indexes balances, UTXOs, transactions, entity labels and fund flows since the 2009 genesis block, queryable by REST API, SQL and dashboards. No node to run.

See pricing

REST + SQL + dashboards · new blocks within seconds · informational on-chain data only