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Never use your first email to sign up for a bounty or to airdrop (create a new special email for this purpose) and for sure don't share your scanned documents and selfies (KYC).

Before the crypto boom began, I was in internet marketing already for a few years, where the basic principle that I understood very quickly was: "BUILD YOUR EMAIL LIST".

People were able to pay up to 3,000$ (or even to kill  ;)) for a good list with 2,000 precisely targeted emails. That is about $1.5 per email (ONLY) and these rates are still actual.
I will not forget it, because every time you talked with someone from the industry, the same questions were asked: "...the dating list, how many lids you have?", "...the losing weight list still sells well? ", "and the crypto list...? ". The LIST was always the main subject.

We have crypto-times and people (FOR FREE) will give their email, documents, phone number, and they will do a selfie with 2 documents in hand when standing on the head  ;) if you only ask them to and offer in exchange not existing or almost always worthless (in the end) tokens.

Such a set of documents with selfies in the industry is called "Fullz" or "made-ups", you can get up to 20$ per piece. Only emails from airdrops and bounties can be sold instantly because they fit a couple of marketing niches perfectly: business, banking, money, crypto, stock, forex, and many others, even dating and sex is enough to separate young, old, women and men from data that we have. When we add that every airdrop has 20.000 participants, then the amount of money that can be made only on selling emails becomes very significant. Of course, selling is no problem and I will explain and even show where to do it a little later.

10 years ago and still these days is not easy to convince average people to leave email and subscribe to the list. Special websites are built or blogs created and targeted with specific content for a long period of time. Of course, google rankings and all that SEO shit, changing Google algorithms, linking, social media (social media proof), and many, even more complicated, time-consuming, expensive tricks are used just to get the EMAIL, subscription or in the best case both. All this hard work costs a lot of time, money, and effort, so when we compare how easy it is to get emails from airdrops, then this is no brainer for many people. Especially, that airdrop participants will be very happy to subscribe to the list (which is needed to sell the emails further for even more) and to do a couple of additional tasks (airdrop requirements). At the start of airdrops, only the Bitcointalk account was enough to participate automatically for almost 3 years, with payout each month (Bitsend).

The conversion rate per click at the beginning of 2008 was still high, but with time it was worse and finally, only 3% of LIDS, left email address and only 1% become subscribers for a longer period of time. The business was coming to an end and big websites already developed to services, with more than a few main pages and additional subpages. Many of such services started to show up very fast (now this is already a standard). Small blogs and niche websites, started to become a thing of the past. Google started to change the algorithm frequently and this business, was not so easy anymore, although it seems to me, that it has never been. It was such a big expense of time, money and the results were mediocre. Suddenly, bounty and airdrops appeared, entire lists were available with emails for free, one could only copy it and already have a ready to sell list, with 20K people very interested in cryptocurrencies.

This is a targeted list which one can sell for big $$$ right away. For example here and this is just one of many websites I know. The professional name is Solo Ads Swaps (SAS) and the topic is old but hardly anyone knows about it.

https://udimi.com/my

And that's how it looks inside because one has to log in to see this. Look at the offers and how many customers bought this swaps, these are the best sellers from last week or two.
Prices in the corner for 1 email.

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/03/27/Va6Rq.png

This is what one can do only with email and I know services on the Dark Web, which buy the entire sets of KYC data from bounties or airdrops, using the dark escrow services.
That's why I never participated in shitty airdrops or bounties that required full KYC. Even to state offices, such scans are not sent, so why to airdrop or bounty, people have no imagination.

I warn you, every time you see airdrop or bounty, where is full KYC required, then 99% of the time, your documents are the most important commodity.

You can see how easy it is to sell only the e-mail, multiple times for a lot of money and I will not mention the entire sets of KYC documents, especially if you sell them for only half of the market price. Don't be stupid and think twice, why someone wants all these scans of your documents and if it's wise to send them to a stranger?

Never use your first email to sign up for a bounty or to airdrop (create a new special email for this purpose) and for sure don't share your scanned documents and selfies (KYC).

I hear you, dude.  I have multiple throwaway e-mail addresses and don't often give any of them out when asked--and all of the spam I get on my gmail account gets routed very efficiently to my spam folder.  Gotta hand it to Google, they've at least done that one thing very nicely.

Amazing to me that people actually make money with mailing lists like that these days.  I remember in the early days of the internet if you got targeted for spam, your inbox was toasted indefinitely with ads for Viagra alternatives, penis enhancement, Nigerian prince scams, and all that bullshit that I thought would have been archaic by now.  Apparently not.

But as far as giving away any KYC info to these bounty people, SCREW THAT.  Most of them are at least as bad as any scammers you'll come across online, so there's no way anyone ought to be providing their real info to any of them.  You might as well put up all your dox on the darkweb yourself.

I remember this kind of enormous case bounty/airdrop with required KYC around 2017 bull run which even trash bounty or airdrop required you to pass KYC to get your rewards. Most of the airdrop forms before are using google form with enabled "must sign-in" before filling the form, then it's easy for them to farm different email addresses.

You can use these websites below to generate your disposable or throwaway email addresses:
https://temp-mail.org/en/
https://www.throwawaymail.com/en
https://www.guerrillamail.com/

There is this 10 minute email 10minutemail.com that you can use. It is temporary and it is disposable, that's how they describe themselves. You can use this when you just need to give an email address to verify something like if you register to a new site, buy tickets. Although, there are sites out there that doesn't allow such use of email and wan'ts email coming from a personal domain.

Thank you for sharing this. Its a good alternative to what I am using now.

There are many ways of verifying the identity of a person. The ICO, bounty and airdrops are collecting the personal identities illegally and selling them in the dark market.
That's why I'd rather talk to the bounty manager personally in a video call but never provide my personal documents.

https://protonmail.com is also the place to create good junk mail. You can refer to it. I think even big Facebook guy sells personal data. ico projects they forced KYC users to manage, but they actually used other things like selling data or manipulating votes ...

Thanks for the information. To be exact, I am always against providing any personal details and documents in the name of bounty or airdrop. My point is why such thinks like KYC details are required for a firm. And who is responsible for misuse of our personal data or details? If these things are guaranteed, then it is okay. Otherwise not.

Yup, I am always careful with this, I am also a person who works in marketing so I understand the issue of mailists, where marketers hunt mailists that are suitable for market share and targeted. Even worse if it really is sold illegally, therefore I have never used a primary email address as a condition of joining bounty, airdrop or something like that.

My advice is for others, always use a separate email and never use your primary email address to be published, it's your privacy and only certain people you can tell.

Thank you for all your suggestions in this review, very useful. For me KYC is something very important, and very careless if given without clear business. My question is, what about someone or many people who have already shared KYC that might have been very long? Of course it will be regret. Thank you in advance sir.

Passing your personal data to unknown persons is the most recent thing. Anonymity for me is in the first place and I will never pass the KYC procedure with my documents. E-mail can still provide, phone too, as there is a mail and phone number that I do not use. I can only provide my documents to the Bank, but I will never do it on the Internet. This is stupid. what a man can do. After all, it is not known what will happen to these documents later.

It's madness that people give away their personal details for just a few worthless tokens, if they really want to make money a better option would be to sell their own ID on the dark web themselves

Sincerely, one has to check it real well,  now because right from time,  giving out sensitive information details about one self carelessly can come back and hurt one to the marrows. There have been cases of people who have been declared wanted just because a crime was committed using these documents. I'll rather earn some few bucks rather than enter serious problems from my careless attitude.

We need to think about our security in sending the document to them, and we don't want to get bad things that might happen in the future. When the document was sent on the internet, then they can free to use our document to any purposes that they want, and I think they will not take responsibilities if somehow the data was stolen by other hackers and then it sold in the dark web. We need to prevent this by not sending any document if the program or the projects were not reliable, and they cannot protect the data.

I don't do KYC ON airdrops only on legit campaign and exchange, and about email, I just marked it as spam once an email was marked spam all the succeeding emails will go to the spam folders and if 10 or more people marked it, Gmail will just mark it spam and restrict or even ban that email sender.

Same here .  I dont also do a kyc on an airdrop or on a bounty but even on ico , exchange , gambling site or anything that requires a kyc i wont do them all because i dont have the required id for a kyc  but i do give my email because that is their requirement in order to verify your account and recieve important updates  . If they spam you can just mark them spam and that will fix the problem  .

I agree and I am tired of people arguing that KYC prevents duplicate accounts in bounties. The problem is that projects obtaining these sensitive documents is ripe for abuse. These documents are valuable and can be used for criminal or terroristic activities. It is time for people to take a stand against excessive KYC.

This is generally a good advice but I think this option may apply to some bounty campaigns that are worthy but in a case to case basis. The trick is to find some suitable bounty campaigns thru research and has justified the use of KYC for their bounty. With regards to airdrops, I think its more risky and is not necessarily needed most of the time.

I'm always careless about things like this, I always believed that once I trust a project then running their kyc isn't supposed to be a big deal, but looking at this now. I'm highly enlightened. I didn't know they way harsh implications like this. Although I never did kyc for airdrops.

When reading this information, I also fear that personal information obtained from bounty will be used similarly like this.

Thanks for these.
The question remains, why can't kyc be stopped?
Because right now from what I've learnt today, even if a project is legit, they may still be selling their participants identities to the dark market. How can all this be stopped. Not everyone knows of this. I mean I that have been in the Crypto business for 2 years is just knowing about this now, what about the rest?

People who are asking the future for few bucks truly deserve this kind of action. Even many bounty managers doesn't mention about the requirement to get the rewards at the time of creating the bounty they only say this information after the bounty campaign finished and token distribution is going to happen. We can't Stop this from bounty site so all we have to do is just save us from abuse even if we are not going to get those rewards
.

I know you have and this is very good. Many experienced members know how to act and protect yourself but believe me, there are a lot more people that don't know anything.

This post is written only because I have spoken with a newbie about an airdrop lately and told him to create such a special bounty email and to cover all important details when he will send KYC documents. He was so blinded with the money and so afraid that he will not pass the KYC when something will be hidden, that he will rather send full scans, as to give the chance to miss the payout.

You have to remember that in some countries 100 or even 50$ is a month of hard work and these people will give their best email to be sure that they will not miss anything especially if a few family members joined too. This is so much money for them that they can't believe somebody wants to scam them.

He asks me literally about this couple of times and couldn't believe it? Or maybe better understand it.

Hopefully this thread helps everyone who wants a gift from Airdrop to be more thoughtful, No matter how much the prize is not enough for us to give personal data and the scammer takes it to cheat then. My thinking we will be sought by the authorities, losses are greater than income dude KYC is the most important and must be maintained.

people usually call bounties and nowadays airdrops as a "free money" kind of thing but they are missing the fact that it is not at all free. those who are paying them in their token are actually buying something from these newbies. it is their time that they are buying and also in cases where they have KYC they are paying for their documentation and all those personal information they give up, these ICOs are buying them to sell elsewhere and make profit. it has always been like this since not a single ICO is regulated to be forced to ask for KYC.

There is no such thing as free money. That email alone that they give out is worth something to someone. Imaging capturing 1,000 valid and active emails and sell that to a marketing professional. There's a lot of marketing professionals out there willing to pay out a lot of money for those email address that they capture from KYC's on ICO. Remember the saying, "If you are not paying for it, you became the product"

Yeah, you really have to ask yourself whether it's worth it to put your personal identifying information in danger like that.
Heck, the US government can't even keep their databases secure, this just happened:

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/447778-cbp-says-photos-of-us-travelers-license-plate-images-were-stolen-in-data
Title: CBP says photos of U.S. travelers, license plate images were stolen in data breach

Before you know it, your data is being used to commit fraud. Are those airdrops really worth it?

You can't blame those people or entity who asking for KYC, the problem here is the people who are sharing their personal information to them.
It's should be first come to yourself because even the project is legit, we still don't know if they will share or not share with other people our personal information.

What I don't want in crypto world is that case, especially KYC. Since crypto is more on 'decentralization' why we still need KYC?
Decentralization is useless if KYC comes in.

I heard these already, But i didnt know how deep the problem is. But luckily im not give my personal data to any airdrops only for those selected bounties that requiring KYC. each day i recieve a massive number of spam mesage to my email and i dont know how or where they get my email address. BTW thank you for this useful information now i know.

I left a bounty campaign recently because of kyc, i don't see any reason why they actually need a kyc for a token that is a utility, i think kyc is necessary for a security token. It is now a norm for all bounty whether it's utility token or security. I think you are right for utility project asking for kyc therefore it's suspicious.

I also think that it is very strange when in the bounty campaign they request KYC for utility tokens. I am always worried about this. but I still continue to participate in such projects

Sharing or not sharing emails depends on each person's perspective and their demands at different period:
- When they need money, such as people whom live in third nations, a few cents mean lots of thing for them and their families' daily needs. So, they might accept such IDs discloses and take risks;
- That likely depends on how many crypto assets they have with accounts used the email to register. It is obviously that if they use the email to register accounts, in which they have huge  money, they don't disclose their email easily, definitely.
- If they use their temp emails, the risks might become lower.
However, for KYCs, there are always lots of risks waiting for them.

Right now you have to be careful not to carelessly share your identity even for airdrop. I realize that it is very dangerous if we do KYC only for projects that are not qualified and even the project dies. So to do this now I really need to look further at the project that requires that.

i will not comment for airdrop, but for bounty program, some bounty program make a rule that KYC was mandatory for eligible to joined their program, so i must filled my data on their form, and in the end my email got hacked by someone, good job for shit KYC.

This is a brilliant piece of information and quite honestly, many atimes we tend to throw away our security consciousness in a mad rush to participate in bounties and airdrops not realizing how much of our sensitive information we are giving out in such KYCs

Unfortunately for those that would like to get some tokens out of a project they find interesting more and more icos are requiring such documents if you want to buy their tokens or if you want to participate in their bounty campaigns, however I do not see the point of sending your documents, if a coin is any good it will eventually be traded openly and you can take the opportunity to buy it as soon as it hits the market and hold it it until it gains value.

The key point is never use your main email to register accounts on new websites, new platforms, just to join bounties. Main email should only be used to register your accounts on exchanges on which you store your money. KYCs can be done without fears or little fears of privacy leaks if you do it on big and reliable sites, like Blockchain, Coinbase, etc. For young/ new-born, and unverified exchanges (in terms of their operations, and their reliability), KYCs should be avoided as much as possible.

      So we should not send our ID card or pass port for air drops but how about the legitimate project which it needs also kyc , anyway for me I'll use electric bill and for my e mail , I will use my alt account in my bitcoin profile just to have contact to the others member

this is good thread, yeah i think we have to get private with our email and ID too.
i am not interest with bounty campain and airdrop with KYC because i think my ID is something important and have to protect.
we have to protect it.

I really salute to you and your detailed analysis and report here. Eyes wide shut!
We have to be very careful about giving our personal information about any kind of registrations. Your article shows how the data which is our private data can be used for the benefit of other people. And there are many things hidden which we may don't know, can be done using our identity.
Rather, we should keep ourselves away while giving such confidential information to others, or I should say to strangers.

There is no bounty or airdrop which is legitimate and needs full scans of your documents.

If airdrop or bounty ask for KYC of some sort than the only option is to send a document only with your picture, name and maybe country the rest should be fully covered.
One can add water stamps and other marks like an exact date or airdrop/bounty name, to make this document useless for resale. Only like this, you can send your documents.

They don't need full scans but never mention about this and this is how they stay safe from accusations an legal actions.

Most of them asks for KYC so that people does not abuse their system, like joining a bounty program with multiple account or joining and hogging all those airdrops for themselves using multiple account (but I don't think they actually verify those users). But, most of those ICOs are just scam. They will just be making extra money by selling your identification on the dark web. It is always best to avoid them.

Having seen what kyc docs can be used for why don't this forum admins ban kyc for bounty/airdrop participants, other means of identification can be used.

the topic proves once again that you should think twice about joining kyc for a worthless token. your own data has a value and many people want to make money from.

You maybe recommend it to the forum admin do that buddy. Practically it will not work for it. You can analyze the best bounty which is really worth for sharing your information.
If you still believe that bounties not worth to share the KYC details you may ignore it personally.

fully I agree with you, giving up personal data to get a gift of grace or airdrop is the same as killing yourself. I personally have never done anything stupid before and after here and don't let it happen to ourselves. keep that stupid thing away

I did not know that people can go to this extent in marketing their projects using other people personal information! I think kyc means " know your customers" and I keep asking this question, are we their customers as a bounty hunter? If no, then why should a bounty hunter undergo KYC?
after reading op comments, I now understand that something is wrong and we really did not need kyc as this is going to expose our identity to those that we may really not want to have our identity. From now on I have decided not to participate in any project that requires kyc.

good thread and thanks for this information.
i am airdroper and bounty hunter too before read this i fill many time airdrop and bounty with KYC.
because i think KYC is not too important for me and that is a proof if i am not using double account.
thanks for your sharing.

honestly i just found out this, and you have provided good information. sometimes I also think about the abuse of personal data from KYC results and it turns out that there is a trading system like that. next time I will be more vigilant about projects that require participants to do this stupid KYC.

It is of course unreasonable to transfer your identification data to practically strangers, as is being done now in the bounty companies of ICO. I always try to ignore the side of the ICO campaign, whose teams require us to undergo a KYC check. However, this is not always possible, because even if at first we are assured that there will not be such a KYC check, at the end of the ICO, the opinion of the ICO team often changes.
So far this is a very big problem for bounty hunters, especially since we should not undergo such checks at all, since we are not investors in such projects.

I see that my thread caught a lot of attention and this is very good.

The main purpose of this thread was to warn all Bitcointalk members once again that sharing private data with strangers is a bad idea.

One more time if you have to pass KYC for airdrop or bounty ask first what for scans they need.

Most of the time a random document is enough for bounty or airdrop where only your face and name should be visible.

The rest should be covered and water stamps added or any other data which makes this document useless to resale.

Bounties and airdrops are not entitled to ask for full KYC and they use tricks and lack of knowledge to get them and avoid problems with legal actions.

In court, they would say: "We never asked for full KYC, only some document with a name, to check identity, is not our fault that people are so dumb and send us full scans. We told them not to do this in a Tweet a few months before this airdrop or bounty."

I hope now you have the big picture in the view.

Its sad how small tokens can drive us to give our information to people easily. I have stopped participating in airdrops because most of them don't even pay and the sad news is that, they even request for KYC. So they will take your information and your time and give you nothing in return. Let's stop feeding them with our information.

Thank you for such a necessary topic. I try not to participate in projects that require KYC, but still I participated in several projects that required KYC and this constantly worries me.

many scammers just collecting KYC database from us and sell that database on the black market to some other scammers. So, think twice before register to a new bounty or airdrop.

thanks for your information.  I will be more careful when filling out KYC.  sometimes KYC is very useful to avoid scammers and illegal accounts.  but I choose not to fill KYC if an airdrop or bounty has no purpose.

Thank you for the information, for that I still do it, but mostly only emails and books I just submit if the reward offered is really good and I think it's safe, for a small reward I won't do it and better leave it.

It is really becoming a worrying situation how KYC  verification is becoming part of almost every project in recent times. In my candid opinion, I don't think anyone is comfortable submitting his/her personal information for KYC verification either as an investor of a project or a bounty hunter. Maybe we need some form of regulations concerning KYC  before things get out of hands since there are many scam projects in recent times.

We really have to be more careful because our information is extremely important and if we choose a bad project, the risk will be great. I often participate in bounty campaigns with good managers and the project must really attract investors before I consider joining KYC. The crypto market is where scammers are the most active and only need a little mistake, your information will be known everywhere

I regretted submitted some KYC for some shitcoins years ago and ever since periodically im getting calls from brokers and scam emails everywhere, it's definitely a bad move. Yet it's a dillema where you data is not 100% safe even the party were publicly reputable and trustworthy. On cryptosphere except some offering which is required to comply regulations. There's no reason u need to do it elsewhere whenever it's exchanges, escrow services or the ones you mentioned

I think that there is no need to share you personal email or pass kyc for bounties and airdrops, as the rewards you would receive are not worth it and there is also no guarantee that you personal info wouldn't be shared to any third parties.

Wow, you sure has a serious needs when it comes to rewards. This is a serious thing. Submitting KYC without thinking that your information will be used for an illegal activities. Even you just submit your email, your personal infos will be easily  access. Honestly, whenever an airdrop is reauirinr us to give  KYC, I refrain and cancelled it.

Black market is really a big serious thing. I would not recommend everyone to pass their KYC in some airdrops. Our KYC shall be in private.

So if a project requested for someone information it is necessary for you to give out your information only for you to get your reward from them.

Thanks for sharing us this threads. And I am so fully agree with you, giving up your personal data to get a gift of grace in returns was a big mistake. I personally have never done anything stupid before and after here and don't let it happen to ourselves. Keep that stupid thing away from us. Because this kind of technique is for scammer only so dont get to attach to their promises. Only trust to tje project can shkw you a good whitepaper just like the dencoin tokens which has a great factor of making the investor safe and sound through their money investment.

Actually you can. If you are doing KYC, airdrops, bounty. You should create a dummy email in order for you not to sacrifice the main email address. Who cares if they hack your dummy email address? You have your main. Create a dummy address now and use it on different activities in cryptocurrency that requires email. That's what I do actually since 2017. And I'm still safe ;). I hope you will do the same as I'm doing so that you might be enjoying a safe life in crypto as me.

I hope they listen though,and especially airdrops or bounties alert you get through emails when you don't signup for such alerts ,they are scam artists ,they always looks legit in the eye but its more than that

[/Quote]
The issue of kyc is becoming more unbearable because more bounties and airdrops are asking for filling in documents to claim rewards both legit and fake bounties/airdrops.

You can use these websites below to generate your disposable or throwaway email addresses:
https://temp-mail.org/en/
https://www.throwawaymail.com/en
https://www.guerrillamail.com/
[/Quote] 
Thanks for this I never know there are websites where to generate disposable email addresses but I must state here that the only enduring panacea to the menace of stealing or selling of data is for total stop to kyc.

i know about this i am tried my best to confirm a project properly before providing my details. you shade more light on how the business raised money just from emails. i think i will stop sharing my identity over bounties no matter what.

Your quote is broken!!!

Please check your post and adjust to avoid problems with plagiarism accusations in the future.

As OP of this thread, I fill committed to check all posts, report spam, answer questions and keep the discussion rolling smoothly.

I will wait some time for your response but if I don't get one in a reasonable time I would have to report this post for deletion.

If you need any help I will be glad to assist you with this post.

This could mean that we will stop participating on bounties. I think people here will unite (don't know how) in convincing bounty managers to stop asking for KYC, as they hit two birds with one stone. They can profit from the documents sent to them by bounty participants.

OP, aside from making profit from KYC documents, can they use the documents for cyber crime and can they prosecute the real owner of the documents?

But this claim is wrong as they ask for both utility bills or proof of address during bohnty/airdrop kyc. Is there nothing the forum can do to regulate kyc data for bounty participants?

I don't understand you? Which claim is wrong?

Please be more specific and I will be happy to answer your question.

Email is not a big problem because most bounty hunters apply this method to be able to do it more safely. I always change my email address when joining a new airdrop and always choosing good projects to join to avoid risk of personal information. In fact, I have done very well in the past 3 years and have not encountered any problems regarding email attacks, KYC because I am very careful when doing something in this market.

This is very wrong, I hate to see a lot of unsolicited messages on my inbox and most of the time they come from applying for a lot of bounties and ICO's. I had created a different email from my normal one for the bounty purposes and it is helpful to distinguish between priority tasks

You would be surprised how many people leave their first email when they sign up for a bounty or airdrop.

Of course, they learn on their mistakes and with time, they change the email but the goal is to warn these members.

Email is not a big thing but together with documents, this is a weapon in the hands of a hacker.

When it goes to choosing only the best project I would say you never know. Research can be the best and in the end, ICO will scam investors.

There are so many examples that I think is no need to quote them here.

almost all bounty hunters do this. Especially for those who participate in the airdrop, it is simply necessary to have a separate mail for such letters

Unfortunately, even large exchanges such as Bittrex, Bitfinex, and Binance cannot cope with the leakage of our data from their servers, there is evidence that personal data of data exchange users are sold in a darknet.

I thought it was obvious, because I would never risk my personal information for an airdrop that is worth several cents. Always check the projects and try to find if they are legit before sending your KYC documents.

Why did it happen? Now there are quite a few projects that do not require an identification procedure. Enough not to participate in those where it is mandatory.

now a lot of projects are asking for KYC and it turns out that their projects are scam, they are very clever to cheat people by making an airdrop and bounty task and they make their projects expensive with their own fake exchange then after many register and KYC they don't raise gifts and the price of their coins is small change, they are very easy to get KYC people with this fraud is very sad that fraudsters do

I think your important email and the account or wallet details are worth far more than what you might make in a bounty or airdrop campaign. You need to do the cost and benefit analysis first and only then think about getting involved in such things and sharing your details. For me, it is not worth sharing your information for the benefits in an airdrop.

Something you're keen. Create a working project (token + exchange) to just get your personal data is at least laborious. As it has already been written here, many are ready to give them for receiving tokens for airdrop.

There are some people willing to exchange their personal identity just with small dollars. I hate airdrops, asking too much task before you can get nonsense token and that include your KYC as your personal data. Then, you don't know without any research the projects you've passed verification had been shutting down and may use your personal data or maybe they sell into the dark web. Same as you have been shared your active Gmail address use.

Some of this projects just want to take advantage of hunters and collect personal information for their personal gain or business. The rewards are always not worth sharing these personal info at all. Most even end up as scam.

 I don't give out my kyc document for cheap Airdrops and even some bounties are not worth my true identity . the rate at which bounties are asking hunters to do kYC now is alarming .

you could imagine an Airdtop that pays less than $10 asking for KYC from Airdroppers. and most of these Airdrops are nothing but scam including some bounties.  we just have to be careful how we sell our identity for peanuts.

I can understand that it is not worth our KYC those cheap airdrops but in bounties wherein you have huge stakes, are you willing to give up your KYC knowing that those asking may sell our documents to the black market as what OP stated? We should take a stand on stopping campaign managers asking for KYC for bounties and airdrops.

Two years ago, airdrop was a good source of extra income somehow. But these days, they're not worthy enough. Just like you'd said, if coverted to dollar, that amount is not worth the risk. This is the problem with other airdrops, they asked for kyc considering tge small amount. I can't blame the promoters because there are still people being persuade to give kyc.

I strictly deny to join any bounty that asks for my personal documents. I'm okay with sharing my social profile, photos or even had a face to face talk with the bounty managers. But I'd never share my government issued documents as their illegal use may bring me into trouble.

As far as i remember couple of years ago kyc is not required by a bounty campaigns and even airdrops, now i dont know why is it necessary to do so. Thus, they requiring kyc yet we dont even know if the bounty campaign and airdrop we join would be a successful. Maybe its not safe joining bounties and airdrops that requires kyc.

Good work done OP. It is surprising how the issue of KYC and AML have popped up recently and there is no doubts about the fact that most of the projects that ask for KYC and AML are scam or incapable of surviving on the market. What then do these projects need our scanned documents for? Investors and bounty hunters must think through this carefully and perform series of research into the project before submitting their scanned documents.

I dont think there is no way someone will participate in bounty and will not submit email to really track your record for any notification, you just have to be careful in giving out the data and so many project don't ask for kyc at beginning again but at last point where people can't go back and you know what that means to them , which show that most of those project are scammer and ready to use the kyc to scam participants and also sell their details .

I know one thing. I have participated in many airdrops, bounties and used a few made up emails to do so.

These emails are literally lost. The amounts of spam are so overwhelming that I already missed multiple updates and notifications from this 5% of legitimate projects.

There is no doubt that all these emails are sold, as I have described in the OP (used for marketing purposes).

Multiple times when signing to a bounty or airdrop one have to confirm the email by a code or link click.

This is when one gets on the list and additionally give them permission to mail further, which this stops swaps and email services from banning such actor.

From hundreds of airdrops and bounties, I got maybe 10$ in total last year. So is it really worth to feed these scammers further?

If we will keep signing up with new emails to new airdrops, bounties and promotions of all sorts and give them the fuel to move on forward with this shady business then nothing will change never.

All depends on us. Is enough to stop with this bullshit.

Email and KYC are not remotely same things. Email is something you can open in 10 minutes and than you can never check that again unless you have to whereas KYC is your own personal information that you are giving. I would agree that never give your ID or anything to anyone without a proper reason but if you want to give your email and have to do what I did, open one mail for stuff you do not want to give your actual email and use that not just on crypto but anywhere you don't want to share your real email.

Yes,do not be daze in a little amount of money for the sake of your security because giving too much of identity is not good for you, you better watch now what was currently happening in our society they used many fake account or fake identities for some illegal activity so be smart at that.

This is a great information and this need to be implemented, when I was newbie I ever join a faucet using my real email and its end up badly, I got notification that my account being accessed from abroad, so from this lesson I learned that email need to be separated when you want to register in some site, kyc is a big no no when it comes to airdrop

This is very useful information.
I have regretted giving my personal data to register some free airdrops.
I just found out that it turns out that personal data can be sold in such a way on Dark Web.

We just need to wait for government regulation of ICO projects. I do not think it is legal to require ICO bounty campaigners to undergo KYC checks.
In my state (Ukraine) there is a law on the protection of confidential information of citizens, in which the right to demand such information belongs only to public authorities in clearly defined cases. But here we give such information to some unfamiliar temporary public organizations that do not know how to keep it and what to do with it further. I think that soon we will have common rules for regulating the activities of ICO and then the period of its "wild" activities will end. If the OCO teams do not have the right to right, then we will not be obliged to pass any KYC checks.

I am quite sure they are not entitled to perform KYC by themselves which is mainly the fact and for sure not full scans only covered with only main information visible like name, photo, country. If not they have hired somebody to do KYC for them with all needed standards of safety. This is already so expensive that this airdrops can't afford this.

This is sad trues but 95% of times in airdrop the main commodity are the documents collected from members and emails. This would be sold as described in the OP multiple times to many marketing services. Is enough to look at such a bounty email and how many spam it receives. There is no way to find something between this spam. All messages are already in the spam folder market correctly by Google algorithms.

Of course, there were legitimate bounties and airdrops in the last few years but I can count them on my fingers and they never asked for KYC or even email.

Thank you for warn us about this. But in this time now we have to see many bounty campaign inform about the KYC process to all bounty hunter. Actually I am a little worries about that, because our data will be used for the criminal actions if that fall to the wrong person.

I see that this thread caught a lot of attention so there are for sure plenty of people who already shared their documents with airdrops and I hope this will be a warning for all newbies to better research all free coins giveaways with KYC, which is insane when one only think for a second about this.

I reffered to the claims companies make when taken to court as you stated. My point is they're telling lies as they ask for full documents of individuals during kyc. Hope you get me now?

Yep you are right sometimes tokens or coins don't worth it even some exchanges don't worth your personal info as even good ones sometimes get hacked so all your personal info can be sold anywhere in the internet space.

This is so true! I have had a terrible experience from this. Shared my person details on a kyc form and was very surprised to find it floating on the Internet and I was extremely annoyed. Not all bounties or airdrops are genuine. Some are carefully planned and done with the sole intention of identity theft. One has to be really careful in this industry.

This is what I see as one of the disadvantages of been involved in Crypto cos I have see a case of a very close friend after submitting her details for KYC. It was sold out in the black market and someone that knows her bought it. Afterwards I learnt never to use my real details for KYC

This is really a great advice and eye opener. Our identity is who we are and it shouldn't be thrown out at any slightest chance. We have to be careful who we share it with.

I got a lot of spam messages on my email simply because I participate in bounties with this email.
I would tell that it is important to split your personal email and email for bounties

For me, the only way I can really give in to any demanded KYC is when I am so sure that the project in question is really a genuine one, and the stake is big and what I will be entitled to in the long run will also be big.

I know how much we all hate to do KYC and how hard it is that we want to squeeze whoever is asking for it, especially from bounty hunters which really does not make sense in the first instance, but I don’t think mangers are the ones to be attacked on this, they are simply just following instructions from the developers too, I believe that there is no sane manager that will request for it too.

Campaign managers are not responsible for KYC checks and rules changes. They can only announce and not agree with them.

Of course, if an ICO is a pure scam and this is obvious from the start then is a different story and live the judgment to our DT members.

I have previously thought that giving personal KYC information may land you in a difficult situation as the information may be misused. But giving email address would also cause problems? I have been signing up for airdrops and bounty campaigns by giving my email thinking that it would not trigger much problems. From now on, I am getting aware.

i think that not at all airdrop and bounty like that.
if you join airdrop or bounty i think your email is automatic fill in the form register.
i don't have any issue about this email and kyc, if you have a good research you will never find scam airdrop and bounty.

Usually when you comply with the KYC requirement, you do it in the website of whatever project you are promoting, so bounty manager has nothing to do with our KYC, unless he is part of the team which in some instance it's possible.

No, it is not difficult. You can create a new email from the same provider, and you can use it to participate in the bounties, so you don't have to share your main email to them. As we know that they can use our email for anything they want, it is better if you can use the other email which is not you use for your business. That is what I did if I want to join or do another business with the new people or new projects because I don't want to see too many emails come to my mail email.

Giving your credentials to any bounty or airdrop is not a good habit even if you will earn a good profit from it.
They can always use your credentials freely either they will use it legally or worse they can use it illegally.

So it's better that you will play safe especially in airdrop as almost all the airdrops are useless and you can only earn like 100$ and below. Imagine how cheap your credentials is.

I very rarely follow airdrops and I also only give my KYC documents to some trusted projects with great rewards. I don't want to give my KYC just for a small reward.

Accurately, providing a lot of information that is too detailed about us will be a good opportunity for scammers to use that amount of information to conduct fraud or impersonation of us, agree that sometimes our security is very good and can prevent bad situations but be careful still better. In addition, the reward for KYC is not so big as you said, I have seen many people through KYC to receive rewards, the amount of money can be received is very little, selling important information to receive such an amount, it is not a good choice

Some bounty hunters have no choice but to submit their personal details as been required in order to receive the rewards. Of course you'll do that when your campaign manager say so, unless you quite in participating this promotional activity.

KYC submission isn't a big deal for us of we know that it could be handled carefully by the one who is asking on it. But somehow, we never know that they used it to scam others by using our identity which might give troubles to us in the future.

I have never used a primary email when I was following an airdrop or bounty event. because I know if I use my original email it will be very easy to become a target for email marketing. and I'm not interested in doing KYC just to get a penny. using the main email and complete KYC will make it easier for criminals to make us victims of cyber crime. so be careful.

Like you said one can never know for what they will be used in the future and if they are indeed stored in a safe place.

Another thing to think of is how long would they keep them and were?

I have seen a lot KYC requests but never seen such additional info added like: how long would they keep it, were, how, why is needed in the first place?

Today in radio I have heard that your documents with insurance number in the U.S and with NIP number called also Sofi or Regon in the European countries are the most used and most dangerous documents used for the scam.

Thank you for your point. I agree with you. We should never give our important credentials especially on the ones that we do not trust. Our credentials are really prone for some attack if we do it.

Everything that you own including your important information, don't give it out to these airdrops and bounty. You may not know that they are into another market where they sell the data, information including those emails that you have submitted to be eligible to their worthless tokens.

When I wanted to start bounty, I did ensure that I created another email and virtually everything was done afresh.
This is also why submitting KYC should be with utmost care.
I cannot deny the fact that I have done the kyc of so many projects, but I always make sure I have done the research that will enable know that my documents are safe.

I am agree. Always careful with our document because if dont, people with use it for wrong purpose or sell our document. When choosing bounty with KYC, we must be confident with the team because it risks the security of our identity

I'd use disposable emails while signing up with airdrops and have a different myetherwallet wallet to provide for ERC20 address. Though when they ask for social media, I need to provide them the real one as I don't have set up any fake accounts.

First of all, most of these bounties are paying pennies, so why would I even risk giving out my information for such useless amounts? I can't take such risk and I'm not stupid. Time has gone when I used to make such mistakes, this time around I don't do such, and I always avoid them. Cryptocurrency was created to be anonymous so I don't see the reason why anyone should be asking for KYC, they must be very stupid to be doing such and I am never going to fall for it. Even if the project claims to pay big, I'm still not going to fall for it, because I already know about all these wicked things they all do in the dark web.

For airdrops use a separate email for each type of your activity, as well as a separate wallet and telegram account. This way you will increase your privacy and reduce the risk of hacking.

Any information that will predispose you to danger should not be shared with a third party and even a second party sometimes. You might feel you do not really use a particular email and give it out to just anybody. If you are sent anything phishing through it and you mistakenly click or it or make use of it, then it gets you predisposed. Most importantly, you need to be very careful with every information that comes your way.

complete temp addresses like trashmail oÄ. i never use them. where you could need them they are already blocked and for other cases they are not usable.
but i think everyone here has 2-10 mail addresses for various applications. so you can also see how much spam comes up via which channels and portals. already scary to see ::)

It could be safe to used another email at this time in bounty or even in KYC submission. It is better to stay safe rather than to be late and the worst that might our email add we've been hacked by someone. It gives me a reason not to participate airdrops or even bounty that requires KYC cause we know what would possibly be happen to us and I don't want to involve any of them.

wow, amazingly. I am really touched by your message and have come to a realization that not not every airdrop or bounty deserves my best email or KYC. I used to pass KYC for pennies which where not worth the work I was doing but still i kept on doing it, but now, I really know what to do with my best email and when to pass KYC as well.

I really agree with you no this one, you should be careful giving out your personal email to just any project because scammers can take advantage of that email and target you for phishing scam. It is advisable to have different email without your personal details on it.

it's an obvious thing and for airdrops and bounties every bounty hunter should create special email or even several emails.

Yes, we must continue to be vigilant and continue to be careful when sending our valuable data to Airdrop and Bounty, because there are so many fraudsters roaming the Cryptocurrency, I hope we all avoid that cheater.

I have always been against the idea of bounties implementing kyc. Personally I don't use any social media platforms at all for I hate sharing my personal information online. As much as possible I always stat away from bounties that requires kyc. It is also not a bad idea to have back up emails aside from your personal email.

Remember once and for all: never share your personal data on the Internet with anyone. No rewards are worth your data that can then fall into the hands of scammers. You go through the KYC procedure and then see how your documents are sold. Remember, never do that!!!

Some exchange requires some level of verification before you can trade or withdraw some certain amounts. Its good to carry out kyc process but some projects ask rather too sensitive information way above kyc.

Going by the meaning of kyc, know your customer, bounty hunters are not customers so i see no reason why kyc has to be carried on them, also for emails, I have a separate email for bounty, but some projects are bent on getting the kyc, this is where a bounty hunter needs to do research if the project is worth his or her kyc.

Very good topic as I went through it. I'm planning to change my identity card which will result in present one as an unofficial and e-mail thing is easy these days. Thanks anyway.

Sadly its true that our docs sold out for some money. We all know very well that our docs can be misused still those who are participating actively in bounties and airdrops are forced to do KYC in the end of bounties otherwise they will not get reward for their work so they don't have choice to do KYC. I don't give my KYC for airdrops that I don't trust much as most of the airdrops are scam.

Thanks to OP for the enlightenment on KYC. Some of the projects are just in for the collection of personal data of participants in order sell to the dark web for their personal gains. Every investor must always be alert and ready to investigate into the project paying much attention to team in order to ascertain the authenticity level of the project before deciding on sending your KYC.

Aidrrops and bounties normally take our details. Most of them do not pay and they will take your details for their own benefit. It is better you create a new email and use that one solely for bounties. You also need to be selective in choosing projects that require KYC.

if for email we are still able to make a new one, but for KYC i'm not sure how to get anything else because if we fake KYC it is also an illegal activity that is not appropriate for practice. so try to always choose projects that will indeed be proven to pay and have good seriousness to build the project so that the KYC that we provide is also likely to be safe there

This is one of my top reason I don't promote bounties requesting for KYC and airdrops too ,I never for once feel comfortable about sharing my I.D to people I don't know at all

This is a very good suggestion and every bounty and airdrops participant should create a special email for this purpose.

Additionally never send full scans of documents (KYC) this is never needed, especially for bounties or airdrops.

If they ask for full scans one can be 100% sure is fake and they will sell these documents.

Legit airdrops and bounties need only to confirm identity which is called simple KYC. Any document with picture, name and birth date is mostly enough.

The rest should be covered and stamps or any other text should be added to make these scans useless for selling.

I like that my thread caught a lot of attention and many more members are now aware of identity theft which is ongoing by airdrops and bounties.

I also try not to go to such companies. Though I understand perfectly well that no one will use this information later, but I consider it to be dangerous in the same way. So before I go in, I see that not will be required verification.

You actually have a great point in your post. But I really don't worry myself about people selling my emails for money because I can always get rid of unwanted email if I see them. I can't use a throwaway email fo a business purposes be it bounty or airdrop.

Talking about kyc, well yeah I should be worried about that as well, but I believe there is a choice here, either do the kyc or dont. So you either in the project or not. It's simple and a choice for everyone

There are a lot of scammers among bounty companies and you need to be very careful
I do not take the company where to go KYC

Sometimes KYC appears at the end of the bounty and makes us confused, between wanting to get paid or being their volunteer worker. Finally we have to do KYC and have to give all the personal data they want, it's very sad.

I used to give out my email address when hunting for airdrops but I'm less worried about it because I believe I'm been very careful when ever I open my inbox to check on mails,I know some mails are phishing rigged or scam

Let's say many have sent their documents to participate in the bounty.Many say that these documents can be used to commit crimes.But what crime can commit having just 1 page of the passport?

I have stop doing kyc for bounty because I am not their customer but promoting their project. I don't know why we should go deep into bounty by providing our personal information. It is wrong and those using other in scamming way is bad.

I have one email for all my bounty and airdrops and if I received unusual offers I just click the spam email link and next time it will land in the spam folders and about KYC I stopped doing KYC from some bounty and if they require bounty I have one of my team, willing just a share of the token.

I generally recommend having a different email for each case so that it is as easy as possible to sort messages. not only spam emails but all incoming messages

But some of airdrop didn't accept temp email. That why i am using my 2nd email for every airdrop. But i'm regret now. too many spam on my email from scammer that saying i got free token bla bla bla you need to claim and etc. so now i won't do KYC for airdrop. Better just do kyc on bounty that more worth it

They will open Paypal account  with this document and send there stolen money from people on eBay. Withdraw to the prepaid credit card attached to this account or just spent. After the victim starts the investigation and the dispute this is the time when problems start for you.

This is just one and simple example, with only id or passport and sometimes they have full KYC documents and this is insane what one can do with such documents. Almost everything. You can open every account, even in the bank or buy something on credit and sell, take a loan online, and many, many more scams.
So be aware that your documents are the riskiest when it goes to scam and give the most opportunities for fraud.

Just think, when last time in very important institutions like a bank or even city offices, have you shared your full KYC documents? NEVER.

Nobody needs and nobody wants such documents because this is only pain in the ass, to hold them safe for years. There is such a big risk for fraud that nobody wants to have such detailed data lying around too long or at all.

Maybe you know from my previous posts that I applied this solution and have multiple offertyww@gmail.com, ofertyww1..., ofertyww9... and so on addresses.

Anyways even such an amount of emails didn't save me from spam and overwhelming.

Every time when one email was flooded with spam I created another one and tried to sort the promotions and bounties from the best once to the worst and put them into different emails.

Finally, all of these addresses were so flooded with spam that to be honest, they are useless. My info was sold and with time the amounts of spam only keep growing until a moment that I was not able to find nothing more if sent to these addresses.

It's still worth it if you use gmail. Gmail let you sort out legitimate emails from spam emails. It automatically sorts it and if ever some newsletter arrive at your primary email, you may put them to spam or just block them. I see nothing wrong in using alternative email account for the purpose of bounty and airdrop.

There is no need to create a temporary email when you can create any number of free hotmail/yahoo/gmails or using any other free service that isn't a temporary one. As long as you don't use a business or work email or an email that is connected to some of your private or financial information for bounties and airdrops you should be fine.

This is exactly what I have done and created multiple gmail accounts:


Still, after some time they are so filled with spam that there is no way to use them further.

This is the main evidence that most bounty campaigns will eventually sell your email, and when this happens, there is no way, that this will not happen again, because they can do it multiple times and the actual buyer will also resell it further. This circle will continue until there will be a new buyer and the amount of spam will grow at an alarming rate.

Only pass kyc if your sure on the project where you pass your private documents. Fraud projects or programs that ask for kyc might use your info for illegal purposes.

No. They don't need your KYC. Why? Give me one good reason? Saying it is to prevent multi-accounting makes no sense because you trading your safety and everyone elses just to prove you don't have more then one account. There other ways of doing this and KYC exposure or leaking is 1000x more dangerous and damaging then any amount of multi-accounting can.

If the email accounts only purpose is for bounties and airdrops I wouldn't care too much about the spam that is being sent to it. Just don't connect it with anything of importance.


It is impossible to know what ulterior motives a company who is asking for KYC has. Do they need it to comply with regulations, do they want to sell your data on the black market or even try to abuse the info and steal your identity?
Projects who look clean and trustworthy can change over night if their intention was to gain their users trust and go out with a bang.

Exactly, that is the main reason why we should never trust any airdrops or bounties, etc. if the first thing they ask for is KYC to "prevent multi-accounts". Especially when they ask for full scans of documents like passport or driver license. For such an airdrop or any other project which will distribute their coins in such a way should be enough if we send any document with a picture, name and maybe address on it, with all other info fully covered, so-called "SIMPLIFIED  KYC". This should be clearly stated that all other data on screens should be carefully covered, special stamp or something else added to make them not useful for scammers and later selling of course.

Let's take ENERGY airdrop (https://earndrop.energi.world/login.php) as an example because this is the most lucrative airdrop in recent months in terms of payout. There is also KYC needed to qualify but this is so-called "SIMPLIFIED KYC" and any document with a picture, and the name is enough to pass it. Additionally, there was a piece of paper needed with Energy handwriting on it, which already make these scans useless for further selling. Energy team informed on the KYC page that all additional info should be fully covered and I was able to pass this KYC with an old expired document, exactly 20 years old driving license  ;).

I think the most important thing is to have a common sense. We simply cannot be blinded by the promised reward, just calmly analyze and check everything. If the project that is going to carry out an airdrop is acting, just like Energy team, then everything is fine. Just don't be fooled and don't send documents, especially when they ask for full scans, it should be a big red flag because they are certainly not needed to verify your identity. Remember that SIMPLIFIED KYC or even social media account should be enough to do this. There is no need for full KYC and in particular when it comes to a completely unknown team from some new project that can't be checked anywhere.

I don't know how many of you have had the "pleasure" of working in technical support. I did and I can tell you that sending or not sending KYC is not the main problem. The big issue is sending KYC documents where they belong. I was in technical and there was a whole separate KYC department with a different email. The department was getting documents in a secure channel through a form in user's personal account but people did not care. They would send their IDs and other documents like utility bills everywhere, to every department and any email they could find on the site. They would even drop it in the chatbot window thinking that if they put it everywhere it will speed up the process.

Don't do it people. Don't be reckless with your documents. You don't know how valuable a genuine ID is and how easy it is to swap a picture.

Do you remember the April fools jokes that theymos did back in April!? When he created that topic regarding a mandatory KYC on the forum. Many users voluntarily uploaded they IDs in the thread for everyone to see. Any scammer could have had access to them and could do whatever he felt like!

This is the first time I hear about this, thanks for sharing.

I still can't get over when I hear similar stories or examples, how thoughtless people in mid-age are, because if they were children or teenagers they could be forgiven, but adults?

I wonder what happened further with all these documents which were sent to wrong emails in different departments?

Were they finally sent to the appropriate KYC department or no one did care and they ended up in bins or worse on the black market?

Usually a department email was shared between 2 or 3 employees. Sometimes it was just one person. I didn't have access to their mail so I cannot say what they did with all that stuff. The general rule was to either delete it or forward it to KYC and then delete. If that leaked out you wouldn't know who did it and when because you can't expect someone in sales to remember to delete a selfie of some guy from Botswana, who happens to be sending his pictures everywhere. There are employees who handle sensitive information and are paid well to do it, and those who get minimum wage and will not care, so keep your IDs safe and send only in proper channels.
Many exchanges have external companies that handle KYC for them and are responsible for making sure their clients don't find their data on a TOR marketplace.

I am very happy that you referred to the topic of money, and more specifically payments to employees dealing with confidential data in your post, because this is a very important, if not fundamental factor, which in fact can affect the security of the entire KYC operation, also for an external rented service for this purpose.


Such an external KYC company/service was already a couple of times responsible for the documents leaks, the best example will be the latest Binance leak. Here link: https://www.binance.com/en/blog/365766157488967680/Statement-on-False-KYC-Leak. No matter if this example is 100% accurate just look at the big picture.

It only happened because some external service has just been rented to conduct KYC for Binance. Everything would be good if such services would pay its employees, in particular, those who have access and deal with confidential data. Instead, the majority of them are created from employees hired in the cheapest areas on earth. Sometimes such services are fully online and nobody from employees never sees each other life. So we all have to agree that the hall security of such an online KYC verifier is so strong as a single-computer from a third country guy who was lucky to get the spot.

I know and there are legit services but we have to take into consideration that in begin of this all KYC helping services and true verifiers there was and for sure still is a lot of scam going on.
I was (not once) interviewed by a woman during KYC from countries like ... I don't want to hurt anyone so I just say 3rd countries. This woman even doesn't pronounce English on an acceptable level to do this process smooth and fast which also only costs more money.

In my opinion, full KYC is the best way to lose all your personal data at a single click these days and we really should do it only if is needed and with reputable companies.

Do we have a bounty manager, that accepts video call to verify or accept your KYC, I Have not found a bounty campaign that does that, some KYC is done, in the websites, bounty manager has nothing to do with verification of bounty participants, they have different team that does that, it's really not recommended to use your main email this is to avoid so many spam email, anyway you can always report these emails.

When we submit the documents online, we do not know which department will receive them. usually every KYC has a similar process and if we are sending the documents we have to trust the site, else do not use it.
Example localbitcoins, made it mandatory KYC if we want to use that site. Now we have no option but to submit our KYC else quit the site.



There are so many participants in a campaign and maybe 100+ in altcoin campaigns. Don't expect manager will be willing to do video call with all of them. However if they suspects an issue, video call is the good solution.

It's really so awkward to see people giving out their personal details for pennies,  lots of participants are not aware that their information is being sold on the dark web,  they are being carried away by the pennies that will be giving to them

Up till now people are still blindly giving out their details, because they are not aware of what is happening behind the scenes

That is why it is so hard to believe that people do it and trust such an airdrop or other giveaways with their documents when this service or website has no credibility or any verified identity.
I don't see any problem in sending KYC documents to Coinbase or Binance and that they are asking it in the first place.

I hope that these days people are much more aware of this problem and this is not so easy to convince them to share private information.
From comments in this thread, I assume that many people see the danger and finally start to care about their privacy and online safety.

Agree 100%!!!
We are living in strange times, when people think privacy is worthless, they sharing every info they have about themselfs online for no specific or serious reason. It will change in time, but for now its beign used by criminals to rob houses, take bank credits on someone else details etc. I could eloborate for hours on that. All because people share their private data without thinking about consequences and they are huge. Its already too late for most and only after 2 more generations of not sharing data, 3rd generation will have again freedom of their data. Sad.

Maybe I am a little older and that is why I care about my privacy and despite that Facebook and other social media boomed when I was 18 years old I have never shared even one private photo on social media platforms. Despite such a big success of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others I always felt like something is not ok with sharing your hall live online.

Of course, I have accounts on all these platforms but always used fake names and fake photos. Used mainly for promotion and for my cryptocurrency advertisings.
I just knew that there is a catch and after 10 years we know what it was. Social media giants like Facebook have so much data on people that with use of them lately Brexit was accepted and politicians use it for elections and win of course.

https://www.google.com/search?q=brexit+facebook+cambridge+analytica&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjx1KfWmorlAhXQY1AKHXhQC-cQ1QIoA3oECAoQBA&biw=1680&bih=949

We have to take our privacy really seriously finally.

That is why I created this thread and keep answering from time to time to bump it to the top and make again visible for a while to let another couple of newbies on Bitcintalk be able to read it.
I assume that more experienced members from this community know already about this and never share their documents with bounty or airdrops, especially full scans and this type of documents.

Luckily, lately, there are not so many lucrative airdrops and bounties are ending too slowly. Only a couple of high-quality campaigns are active and managed by good CMs.

I think threads like this changed the awareness of people and today it will be a lot harder for scammers to convince them to share KYC documents.
In the time of Hyip and FOMO in 2017, this was like a plague, but everything is slowly evolving and the cryptocurrencies world is changing.
For better I hope  :).

You Really give the best advice for all crypto people specially those who’s in investing because they are the main target of the scammers and hackers.
That’s why I’m lucky that my friend had already told me in my first days here to create another email just to use for all my crypto related businesses .
And I believe that people now are more mature to learn this,but ofcourse what you’ve done is a great Job for everyone’s to be alert about all of this issues.Thank you so much Mate..

it is absolutely normal,. that we do not need to send our emails with payments cards or else to exchanges, forums, or any other websites

Every normal user have a special emails for this options

Can we blame these people (?) No absolutely not.

The OP wanted to spread awareness on how to deal with it, especially in this forum(lots of scammers lurking about), you'd be surprised on how many people still don't have a clue about this (*cough* bounty hunters *cough*), and he has done a great job. Many veterans keep on creating/reminding every user to read guides/rules of the forum, they even share guides about things outside of the forum(such as this one), but still many ignore such effort.

It depends on your definition of "normal". But nevertheless, I agree every person should have different/seperate e-mail(s) for this.

yes, i like that too. I often hear that people who are not responsible can sell our identity at a high price, but I never believed that because I never saw it. but this time is different. So far, I have tried not to give my KYC / primary email to people I just met. it's just that some projects sometimes really need it. so, willing or not, I need to give it in the hope that a person is a trustworthy person. maybe I need to train myself to research more deeply.

Such cases did occur in some bounty companies. In my opinion, this is nonsense. Not only do you have to send your documents (or not yours) with selfies and personal data,
but also a video verification that confirms your identity.
And all for what? For the sake of a heap of coins, which in the end may cost nothing at all or turn out to be a scam. Take care of your documents.

This is the reason why some people procured fake documents and use them for KYC purposes and it all started during those ICO days, every shit project out there started demanding for KYC before they could allow you to invest and the funny part is that some of them don't even check the documents provided, there was a project that I mistakingly uploaded an unrelated picture as my KYC document and when I was still thinking if correcting the mistake, I got a mail from them that confirms that my KYC was approved and I am eligible to invest in the ICO.

I don't care at all, i can use any email i like for any airdrops or bounties and still i will be safe because
1. I don't click links through mails
2. I did not connect my emails to any valuable things like bank accounts or wallets or websites with money in them, the exchanges are i use mostly are dex like changelly or shapeshift

LOL, I little confuse with your post, you say don't care, but not using email that connects with your asset. It's mean you are not using your first email to join airdrop and bounty.

First email same as primary email that used for something important in your digital life. If you don't care about OP, of course you will use your connected email with your asset (wallet, exchange, etc.). When you are not using this kind of email, it's mean you are already using secondary email. So, if something happens to this email, your asset still safe. And, your story same as what OP says "Don't use your first email"  ;D

Providing your personal information in an ICO means your selling it and doesn't care and no doubts about it if they will sell or use it for illegal activity. Bounty and Airdrop campaigns that requiring their members to have a KYC before getting the rewards are j
Scam and they will just tell you about the law and it is a requirement for them to operate their project.

Don't fall for this project and they will just sell your information and they are getting the profit.