Bitcoin Forum

You all remember what happened to the Canada freedom convoy protesters^[1] when they received massive donations through bitcoin and the aftermath that occur? All those who made bitcoins donations via exchanges were tracked and their accounts were suspended pending investigation because the donations came from an exchange, that's what happens when you KYC on an exchange, you just handed over your identity and everything about you to them.

Apart from the privacy that KYC will take away from you, it poses a significant risk to yourself and creates a great deal of uncertainty. There could be a data leak from an exchange, and you may find it difficult to comprehend when you are wanted for something you never did or had any knowledge about. Just imagine your passport displayed on the dark web as a tool for sale for anyone who wants to do something bad and cover their tracks with your identity.

I received an email from Blockchain stating that I should verify the account I opened when I was new to Bitcoin and had no idea that it was still operational until yesterday that I should verify my account and enjoy some benefits such as swapping, buying, and selling, and that I would be entitled to $5 if I did so. I had to pause a second and laugh at the incentive just to give out my information.

https://i.imgur.com/Xkgg7bX.png


https://i.imgur.com/p73mZYD.png

Runaway from KYC, this is just one of the ways they want you to give out your privacy for a change and lastly to the Airdrop Maffians that rush to KYC, be careful of those platforms that promise you a penny, they don't worth your information.

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[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5385954.0

It's a rather complicated matter.
One important thing is that data leak is not even necessary, a warrant may just do. Even more, I would not be surprised to hear that this or that exchange has sold certain user data to other companies.
Another important thing is that while way too many send (full) KYC information to get airdrop of whatever 100% worthless shitcoin or shittoken, getting 5$ may look appealing to some and 20$ will look appealing to (far too) many.
And some of those, after years, will realize how stupid they were. (It has happened to me too, so I know.)


So while you are completely right, I fear that unfortunately the target audience for this kind of offers will most probably ignore your warning for now.

I am sick of bitstamp emails, that remind me to pass KYC and get 25$. I think I have already removed all the marks in notification section and almost abandoned my account there, but they are very obtrusive. First they use Free BTC in subject. Then they send emails with subject "require your attention". I stupidly open then, thinking there is something important there. But they just change 25$ bonus codes there :D I think even when I die, they will bother me with KYC and 25$ in hell.

The issue is far too many members of the public are not privacy conscious and many see seeking privacy as having a criminal motive. The more people who flock to privacy centered platforms, the harder it is for members who do not want to reveal their personal information to keep it private.

Depending on the location, that would be an attractive amount for one to give up their KYC documents for, especially when you do not see the worth of keeping it private.

Whoah, that is somehow intriguing- offering free money in order to register for KYC. That kind of practice definitely sparks a red-flag given that they actually offer you free money in exchange for your KYC documents. Do not ever compromise your personal information and identity regardless of the value of the money being offered.

Once your identity and personal information has been compromised, these scammers will use it to their advantage to phish more information about you and your family members. While you may feel the effects of being personally compromised, your family members may be the subject of their scams which will definitely cost you more money in the end.

Thats really not worth it IMO converting your privacy to a 20$ payment. I could do it if its worth $20k at least provided the platform is not suspicious. Lots of newbies are tempted with the money and I cant judge them cause we dont know that amount could be bigger for them. There are some countries that arent into crypto and deprived of such privilege to earn from airdrops and knowing there is money in things like this maybe its not a huge risk for them.

It is two sides of a coin and there are pros and cons for each side. As always in life, what is good for person A might not be good for person B. Here we can only point out pros and cons of each approach: do KYC and take money; reject unnecessary KYC and maintain privacy, anonymity.

• Why KYC is extremely dangerous – and useless (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221497.0)
• Another day, another data leak - more phishing likely (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5390530.0)

If you don't really need small income for living expenses, why should you accept to throw away your anonymity just to get $20 or $50? Because when you lose it, it goes away forever and you can not erase it on the Internet

If you are in hungry, why do you not take that money that is vital probably not for yourself but also for your family?

What people should do is read, learn about pros and cons, then analyze their own conditions and make their own decisions with well awareness on very likely consequences they will get by their decisions.

Can't blame them however for sending their documents because $20 is a big amount already for someone who experience the worse crisis in their lives. If you are not one of those people I guess you are lucky enough to be prepared for the future without getting affected by lockdowns, unemployment and inflation.

Glad that I leave my blockchain.com wallet since 2016 after learning from the people here about the safety of web wallets. Avoiding KYC from exchanges like Binance though is harder.

It's a point!

For people who are in need of such, they should take it but for people who are not in such bad conditions, they should think carefully. I think platforms probably don't have bad intention when they run such campaigns, giveaway, airdrops to their users. KYCs in such campaigns are unnecessary because without this mandatory process, cheaters will come and take money.

Yep. Do KYC farms exist? I wouldn't be surprised if people from poor countries(à la Venezuela) mass submit KYC documents for the "free" $5-50 per registration; like how some try to make money through bounties and faucets. Assuming that these KYC offers are offered to these countries as well.

One of the biggest and sometimes overlooked problems of submitting KYC with centralized exchanges is that most of the times your documents end up on darknet being sold, whether the exchange got hacked and all user information were leaked or the exchange simply sold it and it eventually made its way there to be sold to more people!
This risk is higher if they are paying users to do KYC, there is a good chance they are going to make the money back...

please Don't accept bribe to do KYC, it doesn't worth it for other people yes and totally aggree but if u do kYC for exchange and other platfrom for yourself think twice like the OP said that he will receive 5$ to do kyc infact there is dozen of bounty or airdrop that need people filling KYC to their platfrom and yes they can sell ur data

so the point is if you dont really need the plaftrom or not using it for daily or weekly usage dont do KYC just In my opinion but if using the plaftrom so many times and trusted you can do KYC

in my country people just need Citizen ID and a selfie they can take multiple loan from different apps online even illegal one to get fast loan without collateral so yeah that crazy

These are cheap marketing.

These exchanges are following the regulation of their mother country for their sole business purpose. But we don't know if they really are into "only" it and there's no other purpose that they do our identities.

Although we're no longer kids to have an idea on what they really do to our data, it's being sold and we don't know if it's them or someone who works for them that handles that database of our ids.

But most likely as said, whenever there's a breach. For sure expect that it's already on the other side of the market which these scammers that buy it are on the fiesta with our data.

Exactly, some people's details are not important to them and is worth a few dollars, this sort of incentive though may not be ill centered, but will certainly attracts more unsuspecting individuals who consider their details and private information not so important.

It would have been more suspicious if the amount promised was a very ridiculous amount. If that was the case, it will be obvious that it is just a scheme to lure users in for an ill centered reason most probably to steal private information.

Regardless, if you don't feel comfortable being enticed with money for kYC verification, you are free to opt out and seek other options.

I don't know, frankly!

Because platforms have their own mechanisms to detect it. In my support experience, there are people who create multiple accounts and multiple documents to verify their accounts. In the end, after some bad trades and perhaps carelessness, they were detected with multi-accounting that results in account bans permanently. Because it breaks ToS.

Although I am not sure about KYC to claim giveaways, airdrops. I have never participated in such ones so I don't have experience to say, I believe platforms will not let farms to surpass their KYCs and claim rewards.

If they offer some money, under $100, to verify by sending some documents, I think we can choose something else.
But if it's an exchange, which we use to trade, I think many of us will verify because that's how we make money.
Whether we want to do the verification or not, it's up to us because we've seen a lot of people doing verification in the hope of getting a few dollars after their account is verified.
So we have to be smart in choosing which ones need to be verified and which ones are not necessary to minimize the possibility of misuse of our data by third parties.

This is a long-established business, when scammers need documents of people from a particular country, they offer payment only if a person passes verification on a website, and even easier, they simply take screenshots of their documents.
Today, many people are mistaken in thinking that it is very easy to earn $20 by showing their identity on some website. I saw a completely harmless site that sells toys, and as a prize, the scammers offer some small change, and of course they require documents. And this makes one think, if such sites exist, then they are created for a reason, the victims from such deceptions also do not decrease.

Anyone on here who buy crypto with no FIAT? I'm just stating a fact that everyone on here has passed KYC at a point in this crypto space, you need FIAT to buy Crypto and you need to pass KYC to swap that Fiat to coin.

I think that such farming may exist even in projects advertised on this forum. At some point altcoin announcements still existed with airdrops that needed KYC. And probably they're still some, although I avoid that area now.
It's cheaper to give the plebs worthless tokens for the KYC info one is farming. Then whatever price it that sold at, it's basically pure profit.
Afterwards one can increase the business and go for the next level, offering 5$ BTC  :D

Blockchain is the last service you want to verify identity with them, they present themselves as a “wallet” meaning that you will bear all the losses if you forget your seeds, and there is no active support team, however the wallet is buggy, it can be hacked, you can lose Money without compensation, your data can be exchanged with a third party, however the exchange is expensive, transaction fees are high, does not support bc1, and does not guarantee that you will get the reward.

I don't know, but I think that if your data is not important, you will not get that money, and if it is important (from the first world countries), you indirectly lost much more than this reward.

Blockchain dot com wallet is not safe to use, there was a time I lost my coins on that wallet when I was fully into faucets and airdrops, someone had access to my wallet and move out all my coins that was when I stopped using the wallet.

There should be an option to unsubscribe from receiving email at the bottom of the emails that Bitstamp sends. I am not talking about your Bitstamp exchange account. Check one of their emails and search for the unsubscribe link.

Even with the best of intentions, it's still dangerous because you are relying on a centralized entity to keep all those private data safe. History has taught us that's impossible. No matter if we are talking about banks, exchanges, traditional financial institutions, or crypto-related service providers, too many of them have had their databases hacked and leaked and nothing will change in the future.

Were you trying to say that KYC is such situations is necessary? It would make more sense because without it, the same person could apply multiple times. 

That's not Blockchain.com's fault in all honesty. That could have happened to you if you used Electrum or Bitcoin Core at the time. Sounds like you were phished, hacked, or had you seed/private keys taken from you one way or the other. You should consider what you did to have that happen to you.

The disadvantage of KYC is the identity thief which you might not want to be a victim of those. especially when the one who got your name will use it for criminal activities in your own country or in the other country where you are about to go and the immigration will hold you accountable and put you directly in jail. I myself have an experience on this identity theft where one of my relatives fell victim to this kind of modus, thankfully the thief was only a minor who uses her data to get old and passed the job interview to be able to work in Saudi Arabia. Identity theft is real, so it's better not to pass those KYC requirements for some few bucks, or else you will gonna regret it.

Some people will provide there KYC and verify their account, after it is verified, nobody knows if the data are sold to third party. There are many scam and hacks that happened because of this KYC thing, people will give out their data, scammers and hackers will find a way to access it, use it in a phishing attack.

Data is rapidly becoming the most valuable commodity on the planet, and personal data is at the peak of this trend. Companies don't hand out money for fun - even if it seems that they are giving something away, then you can pretty much guarantee they are getting something more valuable in return. So, what do Blockchain.com have to gain by you completing KYC which is more valuable to them than $20? You might then use their exchange services and therefore give them some money back in fees. Sure, but if you were going to do this then you would probably have done it already, and if you haven't done it it means you are trading bitcoin elsewhere and wouldn't use their exchange services anyway.

So what is more valuable than the small amount they will recover from a small number of users in fees? Your data. It can be endlessly monetized. It can be shared or sold to any number of third parties, from marketing agencies to social media companies to blockchain analysis firms to political organizations to governments to law enforcement to anyone else who will pay for it. It can even be sold directly to scammers or hackers, or "accidentally" leaked on to dark net markets in exchange for payment (and given blockchain.com's shady behavior for many years then I wouldn't put this past them at all).

Blockchain analysis is a billion dollar industry. Data analysis firms are some of the largest and most profitable on the planet. Every exchange and service knows this and wants to monetize your data, if you'll give it to them.

I have never completed KYC on any crypto service. It is entirely possible to buy and sell bitcoin for fiat without completing KYC, if you are motivated to do so. See the following non-KYC exchanges: https://kycnot.me/. I would recommend Bisq and LocalCryptos.

Blockchain was the first wallet I downloaded in crypto when I was scammed. After the scam, it made me hate Blockchain for that. It was as if it was Blockchain that scammed me. Honestly, till now I never knew blockchain requires KYC.
But the emails of any company does not hit my box because I always check not to recieve any update from them.
About KYC scam, I raised a topic Identity Security: A Newbies priority (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5384625.msg59174190#msg59174190). In that topic I learnt many things more about KYC and privacy, especially from o_e_l_e_o as he is too good at it. This is worth perusing by everyone.

I received the exert email yesterday, I was so much surprised with their offer of giving out $25 to pass their KYC. There is much to this offer that's what I say to myself. It would have been much better if the $25 was only meant for the bonus if you trade with them, than demanding your identity first.
Is this the way that Blockchain.com wants to get more people to pass their KYC since nobody wants to do KYC with them

First of all no exchange is giving bonus money for KYC completion, they are making it mandatory so either you verify or just stop using them is their stand. If you receive such emails then they are probably from fake with phishing links so don't click it anyway. Almost all the exchanges want your identity to trade even the p2p with good trading volumes so being completely anonymous is getting harder.

Sorry about the scam, there are many complaints about blockchain.com wallet regarding scam, web wallet is not recommendable.

Blockchain.com wallet do not make KYC mandatory, only mandatory for those that want to participate in airdrops or other KYC required reasons. Using the wallet for bitcoin and bitcoin cash only, no KYC needed.

That is quite okay but I have not done that before, I just do not click on emails. If the email is disturbing and often, I report it as spam. I click on only the emails I request for.

This happen everywhere especially with those airdrops who wish to farm some personal details and emails of their users. And this is so dangerous since they can do what they want and worse they sold it to different type of entities then use it whatever they like. So if its really bad to accept this offer so better forget that small amount then try to look at other things which can give us more profit without risking our personal details.

For now. There is an endless list of exchanges, services, web wallets, and other centralized services which have sprung unannounced mandatory KYC on all their users, resulting in assets being frozen and accounts being locked until KYC is completed. If the service you are using is centralized (as blockchain.com is), then they can lock your account and demand KYC at any time. If you wouldn't want to complete KYC with them (and I would question the sanity of anyone who sends their personal information to a company as untrustworthy as blockchain.com), then you better get your coins off their service and in to your own wallet ASAP.

Wow.  This is wrong on so many levels and what is worse is that a lot of users will do it JUST for twenty bucks.

I believe this may have been sparked by one of the following two reasons.  Either they are losing a lot of users due to KYC so they thought an incentive would make things better for themselves or they are trying to collect a ton of information for specific reasons or for specific parties.

But imagine a HUGE corporation gets to buy KYC data from various companies amounting to a total of one billion different people and all of a sudden a group of hackers get to leak ALL this information.  It would be devastating.  Stay away from KYC, it is not a procedure against crime.  It is storing information of millions or billions of people to only put it all directly in the hands of criminals at any given time which is worse than money laundering, tax evasion or whatever else they are trying to use as excuses for KYC enforcement.

Do not be stupid.  Your information is not worth $5.  Not worth $20.  Your personal information is invaluable.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

They keep sending on me and I just ignore them. Maybe I wasn't really in need of such $20 for my KYC, for my personal Identity, and of course, I couldn't afford to do it, otherwise, it's used by others whose intention is to do evil things.

KYC is important in some areas but not these questionable platforms. The bribery that happens now seems a practice by most scam sites and some people don't have any idea what gonna happen after doing KYC. So it was not surprising that frauds and scams will stop because there are so many people sell their valuable identities to them.

There are many sites especially exchanges that are centralized that do not require for KYC limited to certain amount of deposit and withdrawal, it is true that exchanges like that can demand for KYC at anytime. Blockchain.com wallet is a noncustodial wallet but that look for means to demand for kyc. I thought blockchain.com users have the full control? As they have the private key of their wallet. But I can never recommend any wallet hat find all means to make sure their users are linked to bitcoin address.

I didn't know they're still sending out this emails, seems the KYC documents they have gotten isn't enough for them because I remember this been a topic 1/2 years back when they just launched this campaign. By the way, who still uses Blockchain wallet when there are better options out there that don't require you verifying your information to use them. If you can't afford hardware Wallet, we have electrum (https://electrum.org/#home) that can be used both on mobile and desktop and the setup is very easy and comfortable to use.

We can't be battling with exchanges mandating us to complete KYC verification to be eligible to use their platforms then also encounter same challenge for a wallet provider that claims we're incharge (non custodial). As for the bribing of customers to complete KYC, no sector does it better than exchange. Recently I have been spam multiple times of getting some changes for registering for future trade on Binance and guess what, you have to be verified to a certain level to trade futures. This guys have different strategies to steal your information for their selfish ams, don't fall for it.

I mean, you can certainly extract the seed phrase from a blockchain.com wallet and import it in to a proper wallet to access your coins, but you have absolutely no way of knowing or verifying that the seed phrase was created securely, is truly random, that blockchain.com don't have a copy of it or of your private keys, and so on. Also, if you don't have your seed phrase written down, then blockchain.com can absolutely lock you out of your account and your coins at any time. Given that on top of this they have had a number of critical security vulnerabilities in the past which have resulted in losses of large amounts of bitcoin, then no one should ever use their service.

Meanwhile, they still don't support users from our country.  :P
Most of the time we show that many wallet o exchanges do promotions for marketing or to attract new users. Sometimes the reward is alluring, many peoples do KYC blindly. We should keep these things in our mind, that in some cases, privacy is more important than these small rewards.