Bitcoin Forum

I have a dedicated server. I have been paying for it for many years with bitcoin via Bitpay without a hitch.
The last payment in December was successful as well.
Yesterday they asked me for registration and then asked to pass KYC! Cryptocurrency billing that lets me pay with bitcoin asked for identification: document, selfie.
Are they completely crazy? ???  We need a billing that does not hurt our privacy I say.

This isn't new i'm afraid, they've been doing this for a long time... IIRC, they used to have a cutoff amount, smaller amounts wouldn't trigger their KYC procedure... It seems that cutoff amount was now removed, but that's about it (i haven't used any shop that used bitpay for a long, long time, so i'm not really up to date with the crap they've been doing lately)

Here's some more info: https://debitpay.directory/anti-bitcoin/ (not my site, but i use it as a go-to reference when people talk about bitpay)

I suggest to take this discussion to BitPay -- KYC is here! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5173083.0).

There's a reason why a lot of people in the Bitcoin space totally hate BitPay, and totally LOVE their open-source competitor BTCPay.

Quick fun fact: If you weren't aware, BTCPay's developer, Nicolas Dorier, is very famous for this jab he had towards BitPay years ago.

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[1] https://btcpayserver.org/

Can I ask if you live in the EU, the US, or somewhere else?

There have been a lot of reports on this forum and on Reddit of the same thing happening to other BitPay users, but the only response I could find from BitPay themselves (here: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/kvujzq/fck_bitpay_use_coingate/gj0w8se/) was that it was in relation to EU AML laws. However, a lot of users in non-EU countries also seem to be experiencing the same problem.

Given how draconian they are about everything else, I would not be surprised if they just made KYC a blanket policy for all users to avoid people using VPNs/Tor to bypass IP restrictions.

And obligatory: Stop using BitPay!

Except they won't be made obsolete because there's all these somewhat regulated tech companies who are not willing to become a payment processor for just a couple bucks worth of btc, so they either use BitPay or nothing at all.

It's unfortunate but I don't see them disappearing soon, (especially not with all the additional regulation that's coming) <- !!speculation

I have no hope of this changing anytime soon.

I believe i used them a couple weeks ago through tor. It was a bit of a struggle but i think i got it working somehow... so they're just blanket KYCing now? actually disgusting and really annoying.

As far as we can tell at the moment, they are enforcing mandatory KYC for all EU customers, even for purchases of only a few dollars worth to buy some food. The status of other countries is not yet clear, and BitPay have provided very little information.

I am outside of the EU. However I played with different IPs cleaning cookies every time.
It feels like some cut off moment came and now KYC is mandatory for everybody and for all amounts transacted.

BTCPay is the best alternative, unfortunately not all sites are capable to setup it I think. Plug&Play like Bitpay is easier. But as they grow they are forced to introduce mandatory KYC. I am not going to pass my data to Bitpay. If someone still knows about any holes in Bitpay's policy please write.

Why I'm not surprised about it? Knowing BitPay, it's nothing surprising at all. I never liked BitPay, but after this thing they become even worse. It's something beyond ridiculous. Make KYC verification to spend your BTC, it just doesn't makes sense. Then I would rather simply pay with credit card than do this shit.
At least there is some good alternatives for BitPay. Decentralized one like BTCPayServer, or several centralized services.

Yes, that's right. Just use directly your debit or credit card. Why go thru that bs? They just make BTCPayserver a very good alternative in the crypto payment sector. Let us see if they will survive this way.

What if that is the real goal of KYC regulations? KYC for a creditcard would actually make sense: there's a lot of fraud with stolen cards. Bitcoin doesn't have that risk, but it does pose a risk to the position of established financial institutions. If it's a requirement, I get that Bitpay has to follow it, but from what I've read, they ask even more than required by regulations.

The essence  of being anonymous by using crypto is now gone and I'm wondering why they implement that? does they encounter some malicious activities which might create a huge problem to them in future? or are  they ruling  to regulate their users now? since if this is the case well this is not totally good especially for person who are so conscious about their identification. Maybe its best to find another alternative if you don't  like those updates came from them OP.

There was already a topic about this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5173083.0

I think this will be still stricter. I am afraid that a lot more other companies will follow .

Well, other crypto payment proccessors also have to follow same regulations as BitPay. But from what I saw, other services aren't asking KYC for buyers and aren't doing other ridiculous things. So, it probably means that these regulations aren't such strict as BitPay want to show.

In the end, every company has the opportunity to be their own processor... I've setup a webshop that uses my own btcpayserver and uses the nomiddleman woocommerce plugin that uses an xpub to derive new deposit addresses. The store sells physical goods, so the store owner already has the name and address of their clients, i see no need to ask for extra KYC info.

On saturday, i bought some stuff from an online webshop owner that actually manually generated an address and mailed it to me... Pretty artisanal, but it worked flawlessly... Better that way than losing clients due to bitpay i guess :)

Even such artisanal method is probably better than BitPay. Actually, it would be difficult to find worse options than BitPay.
Being your own proccessor is great choice, but I think it's not option for everyone. BTCPayServer requires to run node, it's extra stuff for website owner which requires some skills. Many prefer to use centralized services because in general they don't have to do anything to accept Bitcoin. And I don't think it's bad thing, as long as they don't use BitPay.

Bitpay is located in Atlanta Georgia in the USA. They are just complying with FINCEN and other US government regulations. Soon there will be no anonymity for crypto users. Least not if you want to make trades in the USA.

Too bad that Bitpay can't do anything about this regulations but to follow through. Hopefully this kind of shenanigans will only be exclusive to USA because I am not yet ready to get my privacy invaded and my identity get sold as a big data for advertising companies to bombard me with ads. I feel bad that Bitpay are getting the heat when in reality it is the US government that are the one responsible for this kind of thing.

Soon there will be no anonymity for crypto users who trust third parties and use centralized services which are in bed with various governments and three letter agencies. There is absolutely no requirement to use bitcoin in this way. I can continue to buy and sell bitcoin in a peer to peer manner without ever completing KYC or touching a centralized exchange. I can continue to use bitcoin to pay for goods and services by making a transaction directly to the merchant's wallet without any centralized payment processor or service. I can continue to use bitcoin to transfer money to friends and family around the world without any third party middle men. The only way the government can stop me doing this is by taking control of a majority of the hashrate and censoring my transactions, and at that point, bitcoin is worthless anyway.

The problem isn't just governments forcing all these regulations, which was always going to happen. They were never going to give up their complete control of the monetary system easily. The problem is that so many users just roll over and accept it. If everyone stopped completing KYC, if everyone stopped giving their businesses to morally bankrupt companies like Coinbase and BitPay which are selling you out to your government, then these regulations would very quickly be challenged in court and the non-KYC/P2P/DEX/self-hosted solutions/etc. scene would rapidly expand. The community enables these regulations by enabling the companies which enforce them.

You are right that very soon every crypto platforms from US will have to force KYC on their users but right from day one Bitpay operates more like a Centralized organization, it's why I hated their wallet since 2016, it shows that US citizen will be more crypto centralized than decentralized soon, then what's the use of crypto if DEX is been denied of its purpose?

Of cos I'd expect such from Bitpay and others like coinbase too, but I think Bitpay wallet still gives users their Mnemonic seed when creating new wallet? Correct me if I'm wrong, if you find yourself in this mess and you want to avoid the KYC you should import your Mnemonic seed into another wallet, it's that simple

I think Bitpay are the owner of copay wallet too? I got tired of copay wallet in 2017 and now using my recovery seed in coinomi wallet, it works very well and all my bitcoins are intact, if you have your seed for Bitpay better import into another good wallet and leave the KYC idea, I'm sure many wallets will follow same step in coming months but there will always be fully decentralized wallets

If you have completed KYC when creating a wallet, and have then taken your seed phrase from that wallet and imported it in to a new wallet on a different piece of software, you have not escaped KYC in the slightest. The owners of the original wallet still have all your personal details, and can still link all your addresses and transactions to those details, regardless of whether you are making transactions using their wallet software or different wallet software. Same seed phrase = same wallet = same privacy invasion.

The only way to actually escape KYC in this case would be to create a brand new wallet using some non custodial software, and send all your coins to it via a mixer or coinjoin transaction(s).