Bitcoin Forum

Initial coin offering has been quickly emerging as the new fund-raising method being used for launching a business. Recently we have seen the requirements of KYC for ICOs are increasing. And many investors are not supporting it. I want to know why exactly do ICOs need the requirements of KYC.     

There are country has strict rules about the ICO thats why its needed , for example some country ban ICO so if you are citizen of that country you cannot join the ICO and KYC is the way to confirm that you are not living there.

KYC.legal is an authentication system. ICO platform began in December. KYC.legal, as you may have guessed from the title, has aim to provide a better system for testing your client’s knowledge (KYC). Today, banks, financial institutions and crypto-currency exchanges should comply with the requirements of KYC. Basically, it means that these organizations must collect and verify personal information from clients. It is designed to prevent fraud, and is also often combined with the verification requirements of the money laundering (AML).

In any case, KYC.legal wants to create a better system for checking KYC / AML. This system is aimed to provide advantages of users and companies by developing a single, unified, user-friendly solution. Instead of individual fill requirements KYC from each service provider you can locate this on one platform.

Because there may be legal problems in various countries, the ICO team must require people to provide KYC information.
But most of the time KYC data is not well kept.

To make sure their participants are not from those countries are prohibited their citizens to participated in the ICO such as US, China and South Korean. For South Korean and maybe it will become a legal thing soon because south korea was considering to unban their citizens to participate in the ico again. that's the real purpose of the KYC.

This is necessary because ICOs are considered illegal in many countries to avoid problems with the law projects are asked to undergo the initialization procedure of their investors. Not all investors want information about their investments to be publicly available, so they refuse to participate in such projects and invest their money.

kyc is required to know investor data, especially investor data from illicit country, I think kyc is also needed as a precautionary measure of terrorism and embezzlement, but I am afraid the kyc data used is not correct or sold to bad people.

The law of some particular state such as US and China do not give free hand to ICOs. Some ICOs don't sell token to people from China and US. In order to stop them from participating then there will be the need for identity verification. Therefore KYC is important for ICOs because some countries are not allowed to participate in ICO. The authentication process is used to know those that are able to participate and those that can't participate.

Another reason could be that KYC compliance may help ICOs to reach different countries in which they can take place (such as USA, China, Canada etc...) and consequently expand the number of investors.

Also, if an ICO can demonstrate proper KYC gives a project and its participants a stamp of legitimacy with regulators and banks.

Well, it is regulatory stuff. "Protecting" investors they call it. Usually in old investing world you are not able to invest in startups and new ventures if you are not a big player. Now the icos came and all the people are allowed to invest, and that is what botters the goverment, they dont want us little people to be able to invest and earn... But you can play state lottery if you want...
Official answer in short is protecting peoples interests, so you are covered and protected...

The KYC process is actually a process that protects both the platform and the customer. It is a necessary process for every area that governments want to take action, especially money laundering.

Because at the moment serious companies, launching ICO, want to do everything according to the law, it follows that it is necessary to pass KYC.

Cryptocurrencies were famous for their anonymous status. But regulations have came a long way in many countries forcing ICO to hold KYC as well before making an investment. Chinese and American citizens are prohibited from investing in most of the ICO. Since, no company wants to get in trouble because of that they hold KYC. Regulations are getting worse day by day. Cryptocurrencies were evolving as a mean of a decentralized and anonymous monetary system. But government in many countries are curbing that anonymity.

It is possible to show various reasons for this question. First, I would like to point out that the project owners do not want to know their customers and have information about them. The second reason is that as everyone can guess, the ICO is to prevent nationals who are prohibited from participating. Although this seems irrational, it is an element that can cause many troubles in legal terms.

it is for security purposes and also there majorty of an ICOs have restricted other country to participate with their project.

Because of legal reasons. In some country's, participation in ICO-s are not allowed, and so the ICO need to check, if you are not from that country.

may be prevent investors from laundering money through ICO .

The KYC process is the only way ICO Project can check the source of funds raised during the token sale, verifying each buyer’s identity and residency, protecting ICO contributors and clients, I saw that most of the project don't accept USA/China investor participate in the crowdsale due to national legal regulations.

that needed for legal issue to make sure project don't sell tokens to participants in the country which banned ICO such as China, USA without licensed.

Doing KYC will screen-out those people coming from the restricted country as we have many countries that banned this technology and to identify the legality of your costumers that they are not involve in illegal activities or money laundering.   

KYC compliance can help the project in many ways, for example
-, KYC compliance will help the project to reach a larger global audience
-, KYC compliance will help projects to register coins or tokens on some exchange "exchanges are beginning to exclude coins or tokens that didn't properly implement KYC processes"
-, KYC compliance can help the project to obey the regulations

for reducing cheater so one bounty for one account bitcointalk but it's not all bounty applying this system

KYC was first introduced in banking system which was eventually carried over to cryptocurrency industry. Know Your Customer or the Anti-Money Laundering process is a due diligence process by which a company can verify the identity of its customers, making sure that the money they wish to send was acquired legitimately and that the customer is not a part of a sanctioned list, a criminal, a terrorist, or a corrupt organisation.
Essentially it was created for ICO to know their customer and check if they belong to countries not allow to deal with crypto.

No ICO are not required to collect the KYC from bounty participants and if they are doing so then it is completely absurd thing.

Bounty token is reward to the participants and it is not a sake technically so it doesn’t count for that one. If you see any ICO is asking for the KYC then either they don’t want the participants to be happy and want them to leave so that they can save their tokens and nothing else. It’s not a guess but it’s reality.  ::)

Absolutely right, KYC can prevent scam and fraud. Many people getting scammed and lost money.
You also said about Bank wants her clients personal information for verifying her identity. Now maximum crypto-currency exchange site taking KYC for trading. Otherwise, they are giving limitation.

Money laundering is also a bad thing, so ICO and the financial system takes KYC.

KYC is know your customer. Careful to share the KYC information.
 So if sell the  ICO project token. It need to for the customer information. So that the reason of need for the KYC. But ethereum also need for the token sell. So learn the information before sell. So follow the rules and guidelines. It save you information and no one can get your information. It safe. So share the KYC this information important of all process.

There are some ICOs that are strictly prohibited in some countries because sometimes their project is illegal. They need also to know your information enable to know your details so they can assure that you are a safe person to lend their ICOs.

very clearly indeed KYC helps ICO to be more secure, unlike some cases of ICO without KYC and now become scam,
we must be carefully for choose ICO.

Because of some national laws and regulations, in some states of the United States, China does not support ICO, and it needs KYC to filter users well.

Just a few ICO need a KYC. This is for legality from the country. KYC on ICO is needed for now because we are in on cryptocurrency legal space. So KYC is needed to know who is in, to anticipated terrorism and illegal activity.

Because we can not give you something if I not know who you are, and it will give the transaction more secure because we know about the customer so if in the future there's a problem about the transactions or project we can know and get actions to make effective solutions

That is, the above confirms that for the participants in the ICO generosity campaign, and in particular for the signatory campaign participants, the KYC verification should not be conducted at all. We are neither investors nor participants of the ICO campaign in the sense of an established ban on participation in the ICO of some of its citizens, such as the US and China. This ban was introduced to prevent material losses of these citizens due to the risky investment of their funds in the ICO.

This is done to ensure that all ICO tokens are not in the same hands. This is also due to the legislation of some countries that prohibit ICO.

Because they make sure the one who buying their tokens is a legal person and not in the banned ICO area (usually an ICO have a country restricted for buying their ICO).
So that's why it's need, but if you want to have the tokens wtihout KYC, you can do bounty. Usually bounties doesn't need KYC for receiving the tokens.

With no doubt or argument, we all know very well the acronym of KYc is Know your customer. With only the meaning, we can understand the major reason why KyC is being set up by ICO companies. Moreover, there are some restricted part of the world which are not allowed participating in ICO, they would be know through KYC and fish out

its need because all the world know is btc trade and ico. kyc needs to seperate them with know something people and doesnt know something people..

Know Your Customer (KYC) is needed for ICO because it make the owners of a particular project to know it's customers very well. It prevents frauds to some extent

That's simply, because a country where ICO is held, demands them to comply with their AML and anti-terrorist laws as well as international ones. Also, this is proof that you are not living in USA, China or somewhere else where participation in ICOs is strictly forbidden.

I think it is necessary to avoid money laundry.

KYC for bounties is good only for detecting multi-accounting abusers, but that is all, I think there should be another way how to fight with these fraudsters..

In order to exclude citizens from the list of sanctions countries or countries where strict regulation of cripto (USA, China). And some exchanges require for listing.

I'm most cases KYC is needed in ICOs to prevent money laundry and secondly to prevent some certain countries from participating in the ICO

First of all, the main purpose of KYC is to prevent money laundering, and fund raising of criminal act. Thats why KYC is related with AML (Anti Money Laundering) policy. A company or project, should validate their investor, and make sure that their investor is a real human and the money used to buy their ICO is clean.

KYC stands for ‘Know Your Customer’ and it’s a process that allows us to be sure individuals are who they say they are. Aside from being good practice, this also means the company can be sure that people are not participating in more than one account to get around the individual cap placed on the crowdsale to promote fairness.

1.   Cryptocurrency exchanges are beginning to exclude cryptocurrencies that did not properly implement KYC processes. Thus, not running such checks poses a long-term risk to a project.
2.    Further, if an ICO can demonstrate proper KYC then it will be possible for all parties to establish credibility with banks and follow Anti-Money Laundering regulations.
3.   Voluntary KYC compliance may help ICOs reach a larger global audience and expand the number of jurisdictions in which they can take place. Such compliance allows easier reach to investors in America, Britain, Canada and elsewhere.

Well most of ICO lately is requiring KYC to know their customers, it is necessary to avoid money laundering so it is legally advised. Also to know whether the investor is real. There are some cases that once's country is prohibited to join that ICO so KYC is required to know whether they came from that country or no.

Just some countries prohibit cryptocurrency. And if the state finds out that some project has given our citizen a cryptocurrency, the project will have very big problems.

As for in the near future, probably, all participants of the crypto market will be verified. But it will contract all the principles of the blockchain(( ??? :o :'(

KYC or let we say know your customer is a procedure that some or most of ICO needed.
this is not for the benefit of the doubt of the team.
but htey just want to legalize every matter for the investors.
they just need to make sure that some citizen of countries will not be able to join them.
this is all about the law.

To confirm the identity of the person who receives the money. It's like paying emigrants, in some countries it is forbidden to hire immigrants. And in this case, in some countries it is forbidden to have a cryptocurrency.

For me in general it is strange when the company demands nothing either the document, or a name from the investor. It means that the coin after ICO won't get on the good exchanges like Binance and Kucoin) So I consider KYC existence huge plus in carrying out ICO and it causes bigger trust to the company in me.

I think, firstly, it is the identification of the investor. Secondly, the screening of scammers. And in the third you can make statistics by region

There are countries that are strictly requiring KYC for every crypto transactions and there are that are not. Sad to say that some developers are using it as an excuse not to pay the investors or the bounty participants who cant provide the necessary requirements while some claim that it is to avoid money laundering.

KYC is a must for ICO issuers in the USA.  This is to prevent money laundering, enforcing sanctions on entities/individuals, or to prevent violation of SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) laws which dictate that you cannot sell a security (ICO token) to non accredited investors.  Accredited investors are:

1) Individuals with a net worth of 1 million dollars or more.

2) Individuals with an income of at least 200k for the past 2 years and reasonably expect to make the same during the same year.

2) A couple with an income of at least 300k for the past 2 years and reasonably expect to make the same during the same year.

The news is very interesting; see the following story: How are IDs sold in Deep Web?

https://qz.com/460482/heres-what-your-stolen-identity-goes-for-on-the-internets-black-market/

KYC must be verify because founders nationality requires this. For example, USA and China can't participate in many ICO without KYC.

With its help, people gain full control over their personal information, as all data is carefully encrypted, protected by biometrics, stored only on personal devices.

The procedure of KYC in ICO opens a number of additional opportunities for the organization conducting it and makes it more reliable in the eyes of state regulators.

I think that this is not the project team itself but government agencies because it is still investing

today many criminal events related to finance, whether it is theft through hack or money laundering actions. with the presence of KYC, is expected to prevent the existence of such criminals.

Its like info theft but for free if that makes sense but your giving the info so its not theft.

Unfortunately, I have a huge doubt about the fact that organizations that carry out the KYC procedure will keep personal data of investors in a safe form.

From the way I view it, I think even from the meaming KYC  (know your customer) is an avenue whereby the developers and the team of a project are able to get important information from investors through documentation. There are some countries that do not encourage or allow their citizens to get involved in ICO, so through this medium  the issue of nationality can be sorted out.

cryptocurrency exchanges are beginning to exclude cryptocurrencies that did not properly implement KYC processes. Thus, not running such checks poses a long-term risk to a project. Today many criminal events related to finance, whether it is theft through hack or money laundering actions. with the presence of KYC, is expected to prevent the existence of such criminals.

I don't like KYC either because it does not adhere to cryptocurrency principles, but I think it's the only way to know your country of residence because some country ban investing in ICO but it can be manipulated people can submit bogus or fictitious  credentials, so it's not realiable.

becasue there are a lot of regulations now and we need to provide our information for investing purposes.
I do not use to invest much on those icos, i do not like to provide my personal data to those people.

usually KYC (Know Your Customer) required by an ICO project is to find out who the owner or shareholder of the project token is. To avoid misuse of tokens that have been traded. Such as, terrorist financing, money laundering, corruption and so forth.

No need to worry about our identity being misused, if the project is good and professional then it will be responsible for the confidentiality of our personal data

Kyc is is the only way for the ico to determine their investors and in this way, ico's can determine if there will be an illegal transactions that is happening behind their own project.

I don't think that the ICO required KYC.  moreover, I think that your data can be used by scammers.

Kyc is just an attempt in compliance to regulations and nothing serious, it's minimizing perpetrating of funds illegally,  most of the ICOs make their contributors pass through Kyc because they don't want to risk litigation

The KYC is applied because there's is a law on goverment to give the identity of an investor and this KYC sometimes a barrier for an investor to invest on a particular initial coin offering or any other investment.

KYC for ICO campaigns is mandatory. ICO campaigns require a KYC to prevent a person from buying a lot of ICO Tokens to make illegal profits. KYC investors are pure and not as hard as people think, just have the passport is able to verify quickly.

This is maybe because there are some countries that ban the cryptocurrencies and kyc is the way to prove that you are not living their. If your campaign is legit, no need to worry. You are in a good hands. Your identity is hidden in others.

KYC which means 'know your customer' is done to know your investors and also screen out citizens of restricted country. It will also help to prevent unfair distribution of token as some investors use bots to buy token.

The reason is simple, a lot of ICOs are trying to meet all requirements before hand should there be an overhaul of  ICOs projects by government.It is easier to doo KYC during onboarding processes rather than mid-way.KYC are regulatory requirement by government for transactions thay may involve cash handling.KYC also help project team to sieve out contributions from restricted countries like the US and China

Well, i am not against KYC for icos, but yes i agree with most people in here, it is more than disgusting need to pass KYC in order to put your funds in some ico, that is something that i hate after all

Because they want transparency between buyers and sellers, most are the central bank that forces the issuer of the ICO project to obtain customer information on Tokens. This reduces some of the investors who do not, but I think this is not important, since so many people have created false IDs to confirm KYC.

Most of the recent ICO and few exchanges is asking for kyc nowadays and they claim that the reason is to avoid money laundering and use of funds by terrorist. I don't think kyc can stop them since they have different means to transact or exchange money for their use. I strongly believe that kyc will not be a solution for what they have implemented and there should be some other reason for kyc and we are not aware of that at this point of time.

I do not understand why people have to go through KYC many times. We need a service that will store all the data. And the projects will take the same data from there.

Personally i can't like this initiative because they don’t need ICO. Some peoples are saying this KFC feel crypto currency are banned many country that’s why they connect with ICO.

Because it is important not to accept dirty money in ICOs. They could be used as a means of investing illegal money, or even as money laundering. Also there is legal pressure from exchanges, since they also need to do KYC and apply AML regulations, they ask ICOs to do the same, or otherwise no chance to get listed afterwards. It is important to have a clear understanding on the origin of the money that is getting invested in your ICO, otherwise you may face issues.

With KYC we can find out who invested in a crypto project, if we do not use KYC, then in the fear will be misused by such bad people for money laundering and other practices

That's the other way around if you are going to participate on an ICO that is full of scammers of investors and identity theft, you should really be careful from choosing as you can put your money and identity at risk, KYC purpose is really good but the downside of this policy has its own risk to mind and take care of it, Choose the project wisely, you can't trust all the people on the internet.

KYC is not a novelty and has long been used by companies and projects of other directions. At the same time, more often KYC is needed to participate in the ICO. All this happens as the regulation of cryptology begins and many countries have passed the relevant laws on which in order to make investments it is necessary to confirm their identity for determining the country of residence and from this it will be seen whether you are allowed to invest in ico in your country.

Because ICOs are trying to prevent themselves from the possible future issues with organizations like SEC. We don't even know how the crypto adaptation process will go on.

KYC is needed to know the origin of funds obtained at the time of ICO so as to avoid money laundering through ICO.
If we do not do KYC then we do not know where the money earned at ico then all countries also prohibit money laundering.

Kyc is required by some ICOs because it is a way for them to know who their costumer and investors are. I believe that it is important for them to avoid duplication of accounts for bounty hunters and to secure the identity of their costumers. It is just for security purposes and I see nothing wrong with it.

As part of regulation in different countries, ICOs are doing KYC. I think it is a good thing to do, not only for legal reasons, but also to prevent unwanted manipulation of coins.

No one disagree to use the KYC. People should also understand the risk you are taking by giving up all your information. If ICO want to complete the KYC. Just pay for a well known third party company to complete it. ICOs are raising hundreds of millions should be able pay for it.

In my opinion, it is really good if ico owners passed kyc procedure. Because then I feel much safier about my funds.
For example, Remme ICO owners have passed kyc procedure on icobench.com. they also have a good team and partners. Have a look at this

Probably, KYC needs ICO so keep its work safe for its customers. But, in the long term it may do great as it'll recognise the criminals in the future.

Many investors are confused with the idea of KYC that if they are going to keep the data personal. But yes, it is also expected that, the incidence of criminal activities will lessen by using KYC. That is a good side to this initiative.

KYC and AML policy is the cause I guess for recent KYC mandate while investing in ICOs. This also boosts their image, also makes it more legal. But I doubt each and every ICOs motive and intention, as there are many scams in the ICOs. I just fear about any leakage of personal information, unless its just a legal and normal process.

Basically ICO needed KYC to know about their investors like who they are and where they from and if there any illegal stuffs is doing by them or behind them.

KYC stands for know your customer. I think the ICO need this so that they can know their customer formally and help them accordingly. I don't see anything wrong here until they are keeping the information safe.

This is necessary because ICOs are considered illegal in many countries to avoid problems with the law projects are asked to undergo the initialization procedure of their investors. Not all investors want information about their investments to be publicly available, so they refuse to participate in such projects and invest their money.

Mainly for regulation purposes. Each country has their own policies when it comes to investments.
This may also serve as a protection for both the project and ICO participants.

I don't understand why some ico need KYC of bounty participants . What do  they need in those people ?. because they are not direct investors

I'm aggree with ico must know the consument but if every join ico we must upload the id from us, our id will not safe

I can only assume that teams register a legal entity for their project in a particular country. And the legislation of this country requires mandatory identification of investors.

Many ICO teams think that KYC will increase the credibility of their project and they make KYC for investors. I don't agree with that, I think it's repels many potential investors. I don't want invest in ICO with KYC, that's my rules.

KYC is needed to protect  your token from the possibility that anyone could claim your funds, it is important that they do KYC because it protect you as a contributor  to the Project. KYC is needed to filter out those with no real interest in the project's success. another reason why KYC is needed could be in the case  tokens are hacked, they could be easier to track and returned to the owner faster.

To be honest, I do not fully understand why some ICO and bounty make KYC. I still don't understand people who give their data to just anyone

Because of the laws. In many coutries, ICOs need to be agreed by the government. If the government do not accept the ICO, it can not be started on that country. In some countries, they require information from investors in ICO so that they can control it easily. If ICOs can not be controlled, many crime and illegal activities might happen

I think KYC is needed as you the meaning of KYC is “know you customer”. I think knowing the customers is very necessary for the organization.

ICO project managers say that kyc is needed for our security. I honestly don't believe that. In my opinion, they just collect more information for their benefit.

There are project that needs to identify the individuals on their project to proceed without taking caution on some individuals who are residing in a country where cryptocurrency is being ban so that the coins or tokens will be put into a maximum utilization without hindering an individual to use it. Aside from that tokens/coins could also be use in illegal activity so a team should consider people who are utilizing their tokens and will be able to identify those individuals who will be abusing their coins/tokens bringing an illegal activity that uses their coins/tokens.

Nowadays many criminal events related to finance, whether it is theft through hack or money laundering actions. with the presence of KYC, is expected to prevent the existence of such criminals.KYC (Know Your Customer) required by an ICO project is to find out who the owner or shareholder of the project fot those reasons KYC is needed for ICO.

I believe its all because some country really strict on crypto and they are prohibit their society to jump into crypto, that is why ICO would need KYC to find out who is their investors.

By using KYC expected could reduce acts of fraud committed by irresponsible parties. But we must also be careful in doing KYC charging because not all ICO was correct. This mainly on the issue of money, we could lose money if a wrong step.

They don't issuing an ICO that isn't registered with the SEC is illegal anyways, so why are they caring about KYC if what they are already doing is illegal? Well, maybe they're just stupid and don't realize that KYC doesn't protect them. They may be doing it to try and seem more legit as well, which doesn't make any sense. A third and malicious option is they are stealing identities and so that's all part of their scam to get more money.

If I do not find KYC necessary, because I only hold the coin for a short time, they are not an asset that we have to hold forever, so I have the right to transfer and sell to any Anyone, so KYC will no longer be meaningful when I sell my coin. I find this to be unreasonable.

KYC ( Know Your Costumer) this is needed because the goverment where the ico's placed just want to be secure who will be the participants because some of  the country banned ico's or crypto and the purpose of the kyc is to know who is the costumer that she/he can b able to participate the ico or not.

there are some countries that prohibits cryptocurrency in their country, even the ICO, they are highly strict about that, to avoid any problems, they run kyc to know where their investors coming from.

It is the same procedure that conventional banks used, basically to verifying the identity of the customers. The main reason for KYC is to avoid any criminal activity involves in that project/product, such as money laundering, scamming etc. It is said that if we do nothing wrong, why would we be afraid of KYC

The main reason is to compliance with the law. There are a few icos that failed to continue due to not compliance with the law. KYC is also needed to make sure that the investors are not from the country that prohibit it's citizens to invest in ICO. That's what i know.