Bitcoin Forum

I made a BitPay merchant payment just now. Before I could reach the invoice, the following prompt popped up:

https://i.imgur.com/Kko9BdI.png

As I had feared, KYC is coming to BitPay (https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-dashboard-id/). I'm not sure if this is a direct response to the FATF travel rule or not, but it's certainly possible. It looks like they're getting ready for full compliance.

Most payments won't trigger KYC yet. For now, these are the thresholds:


When national laws are passed to incorporate the FATF travel rule, we might see that $3,000 threshold lowered to $1,000. I also wonder if they'll be aggregating multiple purchases together over time to trigger the threshold. If that happens, no more using the BitPay wallet to buy Amazon gift cards. Off to Bitrefill in that case.

Did they ever allow a user without KYC before?

Any centralized solution will probably require KYC sooner or later. Can't blame them, they can't run away and move from one country to another like Binance to avoid complying with regulations. They already told us what their stance to compliance is: https://blog.bitpay.com/is-it-safe-to-accept-bitcoin/

not sure about merchants, but purchasers have never had to complete KYC before. spending on goods and services was never seen as money transmission before so it didn't seem to imply AML/KYC requirements. the FATF rules seem to have changed things for the worse.

leave it to bitpay to comply before any countries have even passed laws to enforce the FATF rules yet. ::)

It also says the numbers are subject to change. In time every transaction above $100 will require KYC, and they can sort of afford to do it with their market share, I think.

I was asked to go through KYC once when trying to buy computer hardware with a card (long time ago), but that was in a foreign country when the store was suspicious that the card may have been stolen, but this is something new, even a single Macbook can be above the $3k threshold.

Anyone know how long do they store the users' KYC info?

Their faq doesn’t say how long they keep the info but you can request that they destroy it (https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030710712-What-is-BitPay-ID-verification-What-documents-are-accepted-/) if you don’t want them to hold it for long.

Oh damn, I hope that will not happen. I really do not trust any of these companies to handle my data securely.
This is how your personal information end up for sale on some darknet marketplace. It's only a matter of time and chances increase every time you send over your documents.

Why can't they just set the threshol at, say, 5K USD and leave it at that?

Yikes. As if BitPay wasn't bad enough with them not providing wallet addresses to send the payments to(yes I know there are tools for this but it's tedious as heck). If they go through with this even with a minimum of $1000 for the KYC, honestly why bother using BitPay. I'd rather go with PayPal instead if there's going to be an account required anyway. I assume it's just going to get worse from here.

Maybe this is also the reason why one of the famous sources for Bitcoin news leaves Bitpay and switched to OpenNode.

https://i.imgur.com/1FlotBy.png

A lot of users also too complained about Bitpay. It's time to move on with Bitpay, there are some much better payment provider services especially those accepting also Bitcoin lightning payments. This could be a big negative impact on the side of Bitpay, a lot of people already leaving Bitpay.
What is BitPay ID verification? What documents are accepted? (https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030710712-What-is-BitPay-ID-verification-What-documents-are-accepted-/) - On their KYC, they are using a third-party company (Onfido) to process the KYC of Bitpay's users, it's still useless.

Jesus. Another one bites the dust of rules and regulations then, it looks in the years that crypto is being recognized and more mainstream, governments and companies are often forced to be much more strict, especially when it's related to KYC and money laundering issues.

I believe they allowed businesses to operate without KYC, I personally did a couple of large transactions via their service provider and had no issues.

Have there been any actual rules made, or are they just jumping the gun here? I'm not fully familiar on money laundering rules, but I don't think they were this strict.

They will keep using centralized services. The mass doesn't care about its privacy, and the majority thinks KYC is a good thing for the ecosystem. They're very happy to give personal information, as long they see their money in their bank (or get what they wanted).


People consider cryptos as investments, so governments follow the logic and treat it as it is. It was expected. I know in some years people will regret advocating regulations

I am not even sure whether they will really destroy the said KYC data after everything is processed and verified. You know, private companies, especially big firms with huge market shares do not really do what they tell the customers, and so I'm still not certain as to whether Bitpay would really delete the data after all. And yeah, this is already expected from a service based in the US for full compliance. They really are choking the mainstream players and making the playing field uneven. If all things fail, btcpay and OpenNode aree still free from the constraints of KYC in the mean time.

They might have decided to introduce these restrictions to appease the legacy fiat institutions they cooperate with to send merchants fiat currencies. I could be wrong but that's the first thing that comes to mind, especially considering the country they're incorporated in.

I'm only guessing, but I think they're just trying to make a smooth transition to KYC because they see the writing on the wall regarding the FATF travel rule. They're getting customers used to the idea now, knowing that it won't be popular. The first step is establishing an account/membership system, and naturally they are painting this as a good thing: "Get access to new BitPay payment features!"

If customers start seeing this today, they won't be surprised when thresholds are lowered in a year and they are forced to make an account. There's no legal basis yet, so they're starting out with higher thresholds while they still have time. It's virtually guaranteed that those thresholds will be significantly reduced as FATF-compliant laws start being passed.

Once you have KYC verified yourself, you should assume that your information is stored on X Y Z servers for ever. I would never take the word of a company (regardless of how established they are) serious when they tell me that they have deleted most of the sensitive information they have about me.

Even if they did truly delete your data, who says they haven't been hacked? Or that an employee copied their database and use it to extort them at a later stage through a proxy? I rather be paranoid than too comfortable in times where crazy things are happening with people's information. Crypto as a whole is too immature and unprofessional to take serious.

This is almost certainly never going to happen.

The process for confirming KYC information is to verify the information prior to the transaction being initiated, so they will have no way of knowing if your history meets the threshold to require them to have verified your KYC information.

I strongly suspect that they are under scrutiny from various regulators being the largest bitcoin payment processor, and this change is probably to appease a regulator somewhere.

they will via account login. this "continue as guest" button won't be around forever. i'm sure having an account will be mandatory at some point. so you'd have to juggle multiple accounts with VPN and hope to dodge their algorithms for triggering KYC or detecting multi-accounters, which would probably work at least for a time. but they will also be clocking users with other conventional analysis to mitigate compliance risk: exchanging customer information with merchants, logging IP addresses, browser analysis, all manner of other leaked PII.

it's not like they need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. it's the opposite. they will just have various forms of risk analysis to cut off risky customers who seem to be dodging their terms. multi-accounting will definitely be against their terms once accounts are mandatory.

will it be possible to get around this? sure, with some common sense and effort. but most people are sheep and will just voluntarily give up their KYC.

My understanding is the prompt will only appear if the transaction size exceeds the threshold mandating KYC collection. I understand you can create an account that holds your KYC information so all you need to do is login to proceed with the transaction and the continue as a guest button will allow you to enter your KYC information on a one time basis— I don’t think using this button will allow you to bypass KYC.

BitPay will only collect KYC information to the extent that they have to. Every time they collect KYC, they might not be able to close the sale which means less revenue for them. You might be correct in that customers may eventually have to create an account to buy anything from a merchant using BitPay, but they have given no indication this is coming. I don’t see any real advantage to requiring customers create an account, except for compliance with regulations, so I don’t see them forcing users to create an account until their regulators strong arm them to.

of course it won't. that's not what i suggested. i said they will probably mandate accounts eventually and remove the option to transact as a guest. you can't KYC as a guest anyway---if the threshold is triggered, you need to create an account. bitpay says this is a one-time verification which implies it must be linked to an account.


maybe, but that's a slippery statement. i mean, why are they enforcing KYC for using bitpay's payouts API in any amount? the FATF travel rule doesn't require that and to boot, virtually no law in the world does.

bitpay is obviously terrified of regulators and are highly likely to go above and beyond their perceived obligations. in fact, they already have. i think it's crazy to assume they won't lower the current KYC thresholds or combine multiple orders in your account history to trigger it. their biggest priority is covering their ass legally---that's a much bigger priority than minimizing KYC.

i remember people used to think shapeshift would never bend over for regulators. then overnight one day, we had mandatory accounts and KYC. :-\

I just tried to complete a purchase on bitpay above the threshold, and you are correct, you do not have the option to continue as a guest, and must create an account to complete KYC.


maybe, but that's a slippery statement.
[/quote]There are plenty of competitors to BitPay. No one wants to show ID to buy a $50 walmart gift card, and if they are forced to do so, they probably will not buy from the merchant using BitPay as a payment processor, so the merchant will switch to a competitor if this happens.

This.

The entire concept of KYC in crypto is completely ridiculous when there are billion dollar banks and EMIs who don't even have access to goverment databases, (as far as i'm aware. I think equifax is the exception here.)

Yet, i should be eager to share my passport and thus very identifying information that could be misused in dozens of different ways to a *shitty* crypto startup, (for which if things go south, no one will take real responsibility.) which probably hired some junior CS student to check them, for a payment that is way less than a second-hand car.



Worse yet, analyzing their traffic it doesn't look like it hurt them that much. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/shapeshift.io - https://www.similarweb.com/website/shapeshift.io

If we let KYC become salonfähig for companies, instead of boycotting those who implement it, they'll probably all start implementing it. Looks like that's already happening/happend.

Apparently it did hurt them (financially), forcing them to lay off a third of their employees:

https://medium.com/shapeshift-stories/overcoming-shapeshifts-crypto-winter-and-the-path-ahead-73f59bb8cf13

I don't see them going back on this.

I had kind of an odd thought about this. Yeah, we know KYC is coming to a lot of places and it's going to suck. But did BitPay kind of bring this on themselves by aggressively going after the gift card market and having it bite them on the ass, forcing this sooner.
Like it / don't like it, it's a fact that gift cards over the last few years have become more and more popular as a way to launder money.
And now bitpay has this  https://bitpay.com/directory/gift-cards/  (https://bitpay.com/directory/gift-cards/)
I just wound up with some BTC that I want to "cash out" but don't want to convert to fiat for tax or other legal reasons. Here is a bunch of ways for me to spend it.
Want a vacation? Delta and hotels.com and uber for getting around once you get there.
Want food? At least 20+ Restaurants, uber eats, whole foods, etc.
Amazon for just about everything else.

Yes some of those are going to be somewhat trackable. (airline / hotel) some are going to be a little trackable (Amazon.) But do you really thing if I convert to a bunch of those other cards you are really going to be able to track me.

Same with some of their clients. With egifter.com I can convert to a "real" (virtual) visa card. Not a lot, it's only up to $100 and you are paying a $5.95 fee on it. But if my BTC is less then legitimate, who cares....

As I started this post with, it was coming no mater what. I think for these reasons it came sooner.

Just my view.

-Dave

Here is something to look at,  ;D. Someone with the name of Alex Kaul, https://twitter.com/alex_kaul started this campaign. And probably a lot of merchants have been looking at BTCPay Server as an alternative as well. So let's see how it goes,  ;D


https://debitpay.directory/

Now it's probably on all news channels:

BitPay Now Requires Your Photo ID for Purchases Over $3K in Bitcoin (https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitpay-now-requires-your-photo-id-for-purchases-over-3k-in-bitcoin)


It seems that everything will now be necessary to do KYC. The downside is that they ask people to do KYC for $3000. if only it was something like more than 1 BTC or 3 BTC.


I do not think it is a very reliable service and is the first time I see this site

Many altcoin prices declined 90-95% from their 2017-18 ATH so even if trading volumes remained steady, revenue would have declined by a similar percentage. Being an altcoin exchange (no /fiat, or /stablecoin pairs), Shapeshift would have been hit especially hard.

There was so much growth in 2017 that most exchanges were likely severely understaffed at the 2017 ATH and were understaffed for most of that year and even in the beginning of 2018.

I know at least one exchange outsourced their KYC and I'd prefer they all did this so that an industry wide consensus forms.     Also a company that can be modular in this way is less likely to become a victim of the peaks and troughs to crypto supply demand.   Seems like its always best for the industry to be inter connected not singular or centralised in processing customers.


They are a company with investors who see themselves as needing to protect revenue streams I think.   Regulators and the government in general can be a bit heavy handed, maybe they got the word they should do this or just guessed it was the safest route for protecting themselves vs any negatives.

I think crypto is best peer to peer if red tape and government is not wanted, its not just this sector every business that operates has to carry the burden of various rules and regulations that form pitfalls for their business plans.

A company with toxic backers is a better way to phrase it. I would love to figure out what Roger and Bitmain's stake in the company is. It definitely isn't below the 50% mark collectively, otherwise they wouldn't be this authoritative.

They will do just about enough to remain compliant-- knowing how anti government Roger is, it will not be more than that. This scammer values his own ego above the success of the company he helped grow out this large.

I'm waiting for the day his shitcoin dot com site launches its own payment gateway that works similar to how BTCPay works. It's a product in line with the rest of his recently launched products and services.

Has someone around tried to use BitPay multiple times with the maximum "continue as a guest" limit? Like three purchases of $2999 each (equivalent to $8997) in a single day using the same IP address? If it works, it can help the users depositing BTC to services like Skrill/Neteller with no KYC requirement.

According to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitPay) Roger Ver wasn't the only early bird investor. I think the general consensus amongst the backers of BitPay is mainly that they support the big blocker ideology and for that reason have an incentive to promote BCash over Bitcoin. Another option is that Roger Ver is generously rewarding them for supporting BCash, but the first option is more likely.

Bitcoiners are very much anti altcoins, and that applies to these big blockers as well, even though they support an altcoin too, because that's what BCash is. BitPay for that reason will not offer support to any other altcoin even though it might give their business a financial boost. A move I could respect if they were on our side.

so it's only needed for purchases which are more than 3k usd? any news or infos that they are going to set this limit way more down?

I can see why they got pissed off with Bitcoin not scaling however the option to scale has been right there waiting for them to implement yet there is zero sign of them doing it. That's in line with blockchain.com too which has Roger's fingers up it too.

Plenty of businesses dislike the thing they work with yet they make the best of it. It's clear Bcash is never going to 'win' now and Bitpay's mention of figures have always been massively Bitcoin heavy.

Dunno whether it's in grudge territory now or just bone idleness. I know they may have a sprawling back end but so do other places that did integrate Segwit and Bitpay regularly tinker/irritate.

As for KYC, buying and demanding a refund is pretty standard money laundering. I doubt they want to do it. Write to one's local politician. Nothing much Bitpay can do.

For now it's only $3k+ purchases. But soon they will start asking for it if they think anything is ""suspicious""... mark my words. Honestly, we should just show them how bad we think they are becoming by moving on to another company.

they've already put terms front and center saying the thresholds are subject to change. this is just a taster as they prepare for more AML regulations to come in. once governments start passing laws in line with the FATF rules, they'll bump the threshold down from $3k to $1k for sure.


the options aren't extensive. most merchants offer only bitpay as an option. egifter integrated netcents but they suck since they require 6 confirmations to release goods. bitpay at least just makes you wait for 1.

You can switch to other payment processors that don't require KYC
https://github.com/alexk111/awesome-bitcoin-payment-processors

Feel free to also have a look at blockonomics
https://www.blockonomics.co/merchants

If they get pissed off with Bitcoin for not scaling they don't understand Bitcoin. Scaling Bitcoin is not something you can force through someone's throat like what happens with BCash where they can fork at any desired date and get it through without problems. Bitcoin isn't designed to favor their business model.

I think the main reason they do not want to implement Segwit is that it deems their BCash near worthless with how Bitcoin's fees would be so low, that BCash's only advantage (which is provide low fee transactions) isn't longer a selling feature. I believe that these fools have been stupid enough to convert their Bitcoin to BCash when it forked off.

We sold our BCash probably to these entities at +0.2BTC rates so they're sitting on very expensive coins right now. We've seen Bitmain's balance sheet to know that they have gone balls deep in BCash.

Anyone saw the Amazon fires charity fiasco a couple of days ago?

Apparently, someone tried to donate $100k to a charity but the payment didn't go through and there was no way for the charity to get in touch. So cue Twitter support and public barrage of how poorly the situation was handled (basically, they asked the charity to upgrade their account, but then an automated email verification failed etc etc.).

Hope it was a lesson to them about Bitpay and accepting Bitcoin. But this KYC complication is going to start causing a lot of problems.

Yeah, I saw that a few hours ago and was actually trying to find a post about BitPay to shit on them a little bit more. Pretty lame situation. :P

For those who want to read more: https://bitcoinist.com/bitpay-under-fire-for-rejecting-100k-bitcoin-amazon-rainforest-donation/

BitPay has recently changed its terms. It was big news. It's plain stupid for anyone to donate an amount like that through a compliant payment gateway. You're basically asking for problems by doing that.

No matter how much I dislike BitPay, they just did what they were supposed to do when it comes to amounts of that order. How can you expect them to process it? The person donating the $100k could have prevented this drama.

The only thing you can blame BitPay for is the lack of communication, but then again, this is nothing new-- it's getting harder and harder to get in touch with companies the larger they become.

i dont have option "continue as a guest", have only "continue"
happened in Skrill.
it is not about limits at all.
seems Skrill cant(dont want) vouch for me to their partner Bitpay and prefer to make some pain to me who happens to be their full verified client

what are you using skrill for---USD to BTC conversion? i've been digging around and i'm not sure exactly what constitutes a "bitpay payout" but i believe it's when the vendor takes dollars and pays the customer in BTC, using bitpay to convert. i think it may apply here. according to bitpay's new terms, people receiving "bitpay payouts" in any amount must now complete KYC. the same requirements are only triggered otherwise if you are purchasing $3000+ or getting refunded $1000+.

Well, I'm still able to use that "continue as a guest" for <$3000 Skrill deposits (through BitPay):

https://i.imgur.com/mWOFhId.png

strange i dont have that button "continue as guest", im in EU located
im currently in situtation where can make transaction request (uploading/selling BTC for FIAT) in Skrill but not able to see invoice
and thats why cant complete this process

https://mobile.twitter.com/tomgrundy/status/1171657974043074562

Another one... Anyone still thinking using BitPay is a good idea? ;)

Hongkongfp = Hong Kong Free Press.

Since Bitpay uses banks it's just the same as... using banks.

Anyone who thinks just because they have a slice of Bitcoin in their name means they're permissionless and radical is a tosser. They're just another corporation.

unfortunately, is the sad reality, slowly all the centralized exchanges will introduce the verification of the identities (kyc), pushing the majority of users towards decentralized exchanges (dex)...

Unless you really must, I'd use a different service, one which doesn't make it harder to pay for the user, one which doesn't block entire countries or dare ask buyers for KYC.

KYC seems to be enforced anywhere, where serious money is being moved. Thank God you can use DEX's to trade still without KYC, because sooner or later, you wont be able to trade anywhere without sharing all your personal details. It sucks, but just goes to show that crypto isn't what it used to be anymore.

I've been trading on the Blocknet DEX for a while, and I'm sure more and more people will make use of these DEX's in the future. Which got me thinking, perhaps you could make a decentralized payment gateway as well? We'll see I guess! ;D

Infortunetly, it's not garanteed that a DEX would not ask users for personal information. Many "called" decentralised exchanges forced KYC during 2019.
Crypto-bridge as exemple forced KYC without any notice to both new and old users, there should be many users who had their accounts frozen. Also IDEX forced KYC in a soft way, upon to withdraw limits.
Maybe you still have a good experience with your prefered DEX but your first sentence is absolutely true :

It's nothing new. Almost all service providers and exchanges in the crypto sphere has added the option for KYC. Some compulsory and others not mandatory. I knew KYC were one of the changes we would see this year and it happened exactly as predicted. If the biggest exchanges can succumb to regulatory policies. The problem with KYC is the fact that it goes against everything bitcoin stands for.

Totally agreed, that's sad.
We have to hope that regulations around KYC in crypto will be changing.
Govs want to know more about crypto traders but services should protect personal data of their users in order to keep users interest in crypto.
So services should use all their power to prevent govs from killing last privacy in crypto.

For sure most of the exchange services will force users to share personal data anyway.
However, I think at the end of the day it will lead to illegal activites (e.g. Y person shares his personal data with BitPay, Z person makes a transaction to Y, so Y trades coins to USD and takes 10% - you get the point)

of course they would keep your data's and private info safe as long as they are not a shady/scammy company but company like bitpay is pretty popular and already gain reputation from the public so we must afraid to submit our kyc's with them only if we are really willing to use thier service .

govt's dont kill crypto but im aware that there are govt's that banned crypto for some reason however there are still govt's left that also want the best for crypto's  in the way that they support it and promote it  .

Anyone can create a DEX and the barriers to entry are low, including the requirements of trust and I don’t think it would be difficult to run a DEX anonymously. For these reasons, I don’t think there will ever be a time there is no DEX that will not allow KYC free trading.

Although BitPay's policy (https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037486651-How-do-I-complete-the-BitPay-ID-process-) states that the KYC threshold for refunds is ≥ 1000 USD, anecdotal reports are now emerging that suggest the threshold is lower:


It isn't clear whether this is a US-specific policy or something else. Either way, beware of BitPay if you intend to avoid KYC! You may be forced to give up your ID documents if they screw up and need to refund you.

A quick question for The Pharmacist: Is this the first time you have requested a refund via BitPay? Could it be that this most recent refund would take you over the $1000 limit when combined with previous refunds? I flat out refuse to touch BitPay - as far as I am aware they don't force you to make an account just to pay for things, but we know they perform blockchain analysis and cooperate with companies like Chainalysis to track their users, so perhaps this recent refund was linked to previous refunds and tipped you over the limit?

As ever, this seems like a good idea to post the following link: Why BitPay is anti-bitcoin, why you should avoid them, and a directory of alternate merchants who do not use BitPay - https://debitpay.directory/anti-bitcoin/

---

Edit: Just found this on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/kxhxv7/warning_bitpay_is_now_forcing_every_user_to_both/

It appears that KYC is now mandatory for any and every use of BitPay, regardless of value. Man, fuck BitPay.

The community should not roll over and accept this massive invasion of our privacy. The whole point of bitcoin is to not trust third parties in our transactions with each other, not let them stick their noses where they don't belong and charge a fee for the privilege of being spied on. I would suggest everyone email any merchants they know of who use BitPay with something along the lines of the template email given in that Reddit post. And most importantly, stop using merchants who use BitPay.

I think we will see this more often.

Here in The Netherlands all the crypto companies got way more strict rules last year. Normally I could pay out BTC without any verification. Now everyone have to been verified, otherwise the companies may not pay out. Many companies stopped here due those new regulations.

i just bought a $100 amazon gift card through the bitpay wallet a few moments ago. no KYC required. also bought $500 in gift cards ~12 hours ago on egifter through bitpay---same.

i'm not exactly calling bullshit; i'm sure something is happening. but it doesn't appear to be across the board, yet anyway. it's also possible that the OP of that reddit thread is just triggering the known thresholds (like a $3k purchase) and taking a screenshot. you never know. i haven't seen any reports about this surface on coindesk/cointelegraph or other places like that.

i hate bitpay, but i'll be bummed out if there is truth to this and they're in the process of rolling it out. if i can't get amazon gift cards through the bitpay wallet anymore, the only other consistent option will be bitrefill, and they charge a pretty big markup.

What prices are BitPay charging for their cards? I've never found Bitrefill prices to be that expensive. At the moment, a $500 Amazon card works out to around $503 worth of bitcoin, but with the 1% reward that they offer that comes out at $498. You can even get up to 5-6% back on some other retailers, which makes their cards work out pretty cheap indeed.

Another use from the BCash subreddit seems to be reporting the same thing recently. Using BitPay to try to pay for food delivery and being met with KYC demands - https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/ksjbld/bitpay_now_requiring_full_kyc_info_to_pay_for/

it's actually been quite a while since i've used bitrefill. i remembered the markup being ~2% many months ago, but it's ~0.8% now. that's not accounting for the 1% bonus either---not bad at all.

bitpay does 1:1 no markups/no bonuses, but they do charge their annoying network/miner fees, which are sorta highway robbery during high congestion times. the silver lining is they honor payment without confirmation, so delivery is instant.

thanks for pointing that out. bitrefill is better than i thought.

If you are comfortable trusting Bitrefill to hold some funds on your behalf, then you can always top up your account with some bitcoin when transactions fees are low, which will allow you to purchase cards instantly at a future date. They have also introduced a "Bitrefill Balance Card" denominated in USD which you can buy using bitcoin. This effectively allows you to convert bitcoin to a USD balance when the price is favorable (either by transferring bitcoin at that time or by spending bitcoin in your account), which you can then spend on cards later.

Do you think Bitpay could have found enough information about you through one of the many possible channels such that they decided not to bother to ask you for KYC?

Weird. In my region at least, its pretty darn expensive. For 100 USD of Amazon card, I have pay around 125-133 USD$ worth of btc. Same goes for netflix and other gift cards, I would have to pay 25% more of what the actual value of the gift card is. feelsBadMan.

Either I am incredibly wrong somewhere, or its just my region pricing.

that seems rather doubtful. i've never used bitpay to pay a service where i've KYC'd, and i really don't think browser/IP/blockchain analysis is a functional replacement for a KYC program that demands official photo ID. i don't think a legal compliance-minded company like bitpay would operate that way, but i could be wrong.

i have a couple theories:

1. they are rolling out region-specific policies based on things like IP address and it's not clear yet which regions are affected
2. they had not/have not fully rolled these policies out, so there are inconsistencies happening right now

we'll probably know a lot more in a couple weeks as more reports come out.

Some people report having to undergo KYC, some don't, perhaps what's happening is they demand KYC of people whose activity they deem "suspicious" and leave others alone (below certain transaction thresholds), or vice versa, they treat everyone with suspicion, except those who would have unmasked themselves in some way (again, only for smaller transactions).


Yes, more data points should give a clearer picture.

This is almost certainly not the case. Either they have KYC information, or they don't. It is possible their software is not properly written to request KYC for customers when their policy says it should.

Some gift cards they are selling have strangely high markup pricing. My guess is they sell those gift cards in a low enough of a volume that costs associated with procuring the gift cards is so high they need to charge more.

I would think Netflix and Amazon would not meet the above criteria though.

As far as I know when you get to the payment invoice you can just continue as a guest and continue without any verification. A BitPay ID doesn't mean you have to KYC. It is just an email verified account that keeps track of all your purchases and is required for requesting a refund.

Given how some services only ask for KYC if there's something they don't like, such as, but not limited to, IP address provenance, or blockchain activity, it wouldn't at all surprise me. Of course I'm still talking about transactions below a certain threshold.

That's the price you pay for not living in the US. Don't you know we're the only country that matters!? (/s)

There is a thread of other gift card providers here: Gift cards providers (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5208530). Perhaps you could find one with better pricing for your region.

I would agree with this. Considering BitPay say they are doing this to comply with various AML laws from various governments, I highly doubt that those governments would say "Yeah, non-perfect and easily fooled blockchain analysis is sufficient" when they can just as easily say "Everyone must upload their passport".

Found a response on Reddit from a BitPay staff member: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/kvujzq/fck_bitpay_use_coingate/gj0w8se/. It seems like they have introduced or are introducing mandatory KYC for all EU customers, regardless of value of transaction.

I think they're being overly cautious, though, small transactions up to 150 EUR/month should be excluded, and there are ways of avoiding even that for businesses like Bitpay in some circumstances, unless the Netherlands, where Bitpay's EU HQ are located, has decided to implement the directive more stringently.

BitPay have always gone far beyond what regulations or laws have required them to do in terms of KYC and privacy invasion. There are a bunch of other gift card providers on the thread I linked above which serve EU customers, and I've not heard anything about new KYC requirements for any of them. Similarly, there are a bunch of alternative payment processors to BitPay, and again, I've not heard anything about new KYC requirements for any of them.

I'm not a European customer so I cannot confirm though. Perhaps someone who is and has made some purchases recently through non-BitPay means could say if there was any difference or any hints of KYC?

At the end of the day, KYC for any and every payment, no matter how small (getting KYCed to buy a pizza!) is utterly ridiculous. We should not be OK with this.

phew! i'm in the states. that explains it. thank you for sharing the link.

not that i don't expect similar policies to be rolled out in the USA---i do. i'm just enjoying the non-KYC situation while we still have it.


i don't know the intricacies of AMLD5 but i think it mandated a €50 limit on anonymous payment methods. IIRC even EU-based faucets and tipping services shut down because of it. so i'm not entirely surprised. brutal...

It seems they have different policies based on the user's location, so they may require KYC verification based on some criteria that determines the location of the user. This could be based on the user's IP address, or it could be something else, such as a representation from the merchant.

That is a really stupid law if it is true. A gift card is an anonymous payment method. It is more private than using Bitcoin in most circumstances. Does that mean that Amazon is going to start KYCing customers who pay with gift cards?

My impression is that the AML/KYC requirements kick in when money -- including bitcoin -- is exchanged for gift cards, not when gift cards are redeemed at the issuer.

Regardless, Amazon has already begun requiring KYC for gift card redemption, although I think it's for fraud and loss prevention more so than money transmission law. You need a linked credit card or bank account (and in the US a verified address), otherwise your account is likely to be locked after gift card redemption. Notice the warnings that Bitrefill now posts on its Amazon gift card pages (https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/amazon_com-usa/?hl=en):

Bitrefill's markup varies per gift card (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5208530.msg56125802#msg56125802). For small gift cards I don't really care, as long as I don't have to pay a hefty on-chain consolidation fee.

My preferred method nowadays is to fund a LN-wallet (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5250677.0) when on-chain fees are low (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2848987.new#new), and use LN to pay Bitrefill when I need it.

My guess is some merchants give them a better price for the gift card, for instance clothes sellers that have a large profit margin.

The Dutch National Bank has implemented stricter crypto-regulations than required by EU, see Bitonic.nl (https://bitonic.nl/en/news/213/additional-verification-measures-due-to-registration-application).

Isn't it enough the pizza guy knows where to bring it?

In the Netherlands, the most common gift card (VVV) is treated as an anonymous prepaid creditcard (info in Dutch (https://www.vvvnederland.nl/nieuws/kan-ik-met-mijn-vvv-cadeaukaart-nog-maar-maximaal-e50-besteden/)). That means you can't pay more than €50 at once online.

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I use crypto to pay for 3 different webhosts, and one of them has no other option than Bitpay. I haven't been hit by KYC on BitPay yet, and I'd hate to lose this host over this. I specifically choose Bitcoin for privacy, otherwise I could just pay by creditcard (which is less intrusive than sending selfies).
Update: I checked, the webhost uses CoinPayments.net, so I'm good (for now).

If only more people would care and ignore them. They can probably afford to lose a small percentage of their customers, but if they'd lose 95% of their business, they might change their requirements.
If it's for EU: would a VPN in Mexico work? :D

I think it would be better to choose other countries than Mexico :D
Personally, I can't understand the one thing: There is BitPay and there is BTCPay with zero fees. Why would someone use BitPay over BTCPay? I think BitPay also knows that BTCPay exists, so there is higher competition for them but instead of making things easier, they are making everything very hard and crypto unfriendly. Logically, this should destroy their business. Asking KYC for transactions is very unethical and disgusting. Isn't it my right to protect my privacy? And then governments tell us about how your free will is protected by the law.

Conclusion: This world is shit (most likely we make it shit), full of lies where people are still slaves, where people are just a toy for marketers and data analysts, eh...

BitPay has first mover's advantage and they make it easier (in theory) to accept fiat. In reality the users transfers the risk of freezing funds from an exchange to BitPay.

Relevant links:
https://github.com/btcpayserver/btcTransmuter
https://medium.com/@prayankgahlot/instant-fiat-conversion-with-btcpay-1d2f3dd57352


Statists' aspirations ≫ privacy for the individual

Has anyone come across reports of this happening in the US -- or for that matter, anywhere outside of Europe or European IP ranges? I've seen a couple more posts like this (https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/kzb7ly/bitpay_whats_wrong_with_you/). All signs that I've seen so far still point to an EU-specific policy.

I would test it myself, except I really don't want to sell any bitcoins right now. :)

THis may be true, but I also think that in general, if a merchant is selling a lot of gift cards to a single customer, they will offer a better deal.

I actually somewhat understand this. Buying a pizza and giving a very large tip via bitcoin might be a way to launder money, which is what KYC is supposed to prevent track.

BitPay allows a merchant to accept bitcoin on their website, but receive fiat to their bank account. BTCPay, by virtue of being self hosted and non-custodial, does not. BTCPay users (at the moment) have to manually set up automatic fiat conversion using an exchange or other third party.

There is this user - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5310416.msg56133269#msg56133269 - who says he was hit with KYC demands despite being outside the EU, although he does say he uses different IPs so perhaps he used a European VPN server or Tor exit node.

The same could be said of paying in cash, and even more so by paying in cash in a restaurant or picking up food in person without giving out a name or address as you would with home delivery. And yet, no one trys to make you KYC for this.

The same cash is used for much more criminal activities than crypto, but at least those criminal activities support the fiat money system :D

If someone were to take out a lot of cash from the bank, there are reporting requirements the bank has to follow. If someone were to take out smaller amounts of cash in order to avoid the reporting thresholds, there are other reporting requirements.

From an AML perspective, when selling gift cards for bitcoin, it is very difficult to tell when someone is buying many lower denominated gift cards in order to avoid KYC thresholds.

Yeah, ALL of them are like with an insane markup price. So not worth it .

I shit you not, all the gift card providers in my region give such insane markup price, i might as well just use my credit card for it. Hoping for it to change. Cries in pain.

<insert twitter pain meme here>

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdQUSsKU4AE99Z0?format=jpg&name=small

If someone is laundering dirty cash, from selling drugs for example, then the money is not being withdrawn from a bank, so my point still stands. If this were actually about preventing money laundering, then they would have forced similar regulations (KYC at point of spending) on cash transactions a long time ago, given that cash continues to be the dominant platform for money launderers and has laundered trillions of dollars more than bitcoin. This isn't about money laundering - it's about governments trying to exercise control over what they see as a threat to their easily manipulated fiat monetary system.

What a nightmare. Any possibility of buying a pre-paid mastercard or similar with bitcoin and using that instead?

Money laundering can happen both with money that is outside of the banking system (cash) and is inside the banking system (in bank accounts). An example of someone laundering money that is in the banking system would be someone committing identity theft to take out fraudulent loans that are deposited into a bank account. Another example might be someone using a fake business to process transactions from stolen credit cards. Both examples would necessitate cash being withdrawn from bank accounts in order to ensure the fraudster can keep the illegitimate proceeds.

Sure. I'm not saying that money laundering from bank accounts, which will presumably be tracked from the "withdrawal" end, doesn't happen. I'm simply saying that money laundering of cash that is not in bank accounts also happens, which would need to be tracked at the "spending" end. The fact is that this tracking at the "spending" end generally doesn't happen, except for some very large purchases. I've personally made purchases of several thousand dollars in cash without even a hint of KYC being required, so you are going to struggle to convince me that KYCing for a $10 pizza bought with bitcoin is to help prevent money laundering, or indeed that any significant amount of money laundering occurs via this route. This is about surveillance and control from governments that are scared of losing their grip and scared of new technology.

As an interesting point. If you have the BitPay Mastercard you already gave them all the info they need about you.
So, if you have wanted to ability to spend crypto with a card, and get cash back at some places like I discussed in another post about the card, then you have already KYCd yourself to them.

Same with a lot of gift cards, if you use an app to redeem them for anything.

Think about it, I go to Bitrefill to get myself a DunkinDonuts card, if I add it to my app to order my coffee and donut then I have KYCd myself. If the government is looking for me it's just and extra step they have to go though. Same with Chipolte, T-Mobile, or just about any other card you get. It would be nice to think that Bitrefill or any other organization like them is not going to hand over information, to the government, but lets be honest you can't be sure. It just makes it harder to track not impossible.

-Dave

This is assuming your government is looking for transactions from a specific address, right? If you buy the card using a 1000 Bitcoin input that was stolen from an exchange you'll probably get targeted. But if you're not making yourself a target, and especially if your government has no power over Bitrefill, I don't expect them to wait for you at the local donuts store. Besides, you could have received the DunkinDonuts card from someone else as a gift.

Yeah, I think the distinction here is between passive surveillance and active investigation.

When you complete KYC at BitPay, then they are handing over all that information to the relevant governments and associated agencies, your details are going in a database, and you are being monitored along with millions of other innocent citizens to see if anything suspicious flags up.

When you buy a gift card anonymously and then add it to your Amazon account, for example, then sure there is still a potential pathway there between your real name and the bitcoin transaction you used to buy the gift card, but Bitrefill aren't reporting the serial number of every gift card purchase to the government and the government aren't then taking those numbers to Amazon and demanding that they provide the account details of every redemption. They no doubt could do this if someone was being specifically investigated, but they are not doing it en masse for all gift card purchases.

And if that is a serious concern for you then just don't link the gift cards to accounts or apps which have you details, and instead opt to spend them anonymously in person.

it depends on the app. if you're loading amazon gift cards onto your account, then yes, you've generally already been KYC'd. you're tied to a physical address and likely have registered other payment methods that can identify you.

lots of other retail apps (target, starbucks, chipotle etc)---dare i say, most---collect various PII from your device i'm sure, but they don't require any personal information to load and pay with gift cards. if you use them only in brick-and-mortar stores like cash and do not link your app/account to a physical address or payment methods, i don't think you've KYC'd yourself.


what information---the coins you used to pay for your gift card? your browser info?

Yeah, you are right but I think this is the moment when "Pros" don't outweigh cons. Personally, most of the times I have seen Bitcoin accepted on websites where they sell some for example, sarms, cbd, something that's in the grey area for purchase. So, idk if it's still beneficial for businesses use BitPay as their payment gateway provider, I believe they'll lose high percentage of their users, even BitPay will be left without significant users.

I see that it's becoming a trend for businesses to hold cryptocurrencies, that's why I hope they will move on BTCPay and exchange manually or with the partnership of other crypto service providers.

Yeah not possible either. motherfucking cunts.

Yeah but usually when you buy gift cards, you don't give out your address/Identication documents(Passport/drivers license etc), so you aren't fully KYC'd, no? Sure, it is possible to find out some information with your name etc, but not everything. It is a gamble at the end of the day.

It was bound to happen sooner or later but at the same time there has been a up-rise of other companies providing ways to purchase bitcoins without KYC verification which is nice to see

When I buy gift cards, not only do I not give out any personal details whatsoever, but I use a burner email address and account (if required) which I usually abandon after purchasing 3 or 4 gift cards and move to a new email/account altogether, so as even to avoid letting the the gift card seller build up a profile of what retailers I am shopping with and how much I am spending at each one. Combine that with only spending the gift cards in person, with your face covered (thanks COVID!), and not linking them to an app or other retailer account or loyalty scheme, I would say that's pretty good in terms of privacy and not being tracked.

KYC for buying bitcoins has been around for a while and is getting easier to avoid if you are motivated to do so. More importantly, it is your choice if you use a centralized exchange which asks for KYC or you use a decentralized exchange which does not, such as Bisq or LocalCryptos. But KYC for spending bitcoin is something else, and if the payment provider for a specific merchant starts demanding KYC, you may not have an alternative merchant you can turn to.