Why KYC is extremely dangerous – and useless

[1miau]

All of us are afraid of losing money due to hacks, scams, our own mistakes or even bad decisions (buying useless shitcoins, selling coins too late or too early, etc). Most topics cover issues such as these. But when it comes to losses, you should be aware that there’s more than money which can be lost. By this, I’m talking about identity theft of personal data of any kind. Protecting this data and paying attention to privacy should have at least the same priority of protecting your money. After all, money is replaceable; it’s "only" a financial loss. Once identity is stolen, however, there is no chance of its undoing.

This is where the issue begins. One of the best ways to protect yourself from identity theft is to understand the false assumptions of KYC. Some crypto services require its users to undergo a so-called “KYC” nowadays. KYC means “know your customer” and forces users to send personal documents to a company or organization. This is already becoming a problematic issue that some companies are very strict and will not allow you to use their services, even if you just want to purchase crypto worth only a few hundred dollars.

The official purpose of KYC should be to prevent money laundering (known as AML, anti-money laundering) and terrorist financing. Strict KYC and AML were mainly introduced by the US after 9/11 and many countries are guided by the SEC in setting KYC as a requirement. AML existed before but only for institutions and big amounts of money. Average customers were affected only after restrictions introduced by the SEC.
At first glance, KYC sounds good for shutting down criminal activities. Unfortunately, this looks very different in reality. KYC in crypto doesn’t necessarily help to stop money laundering or reduce criminal activity; nor does it help to prevent terrorist financing. On the contrary - KYC endangers our privacy and encourages criminal activities (via KYC scams, identity theft and other means).


KYC is encouraging identity theft

When someone is doing KYC, they are forced to hand out parts of their personal identity to a third party (such as an exchange, ICO, etc). After that point, they aren’t in control of the process anymore and are totally exposed on a third party to handle their sensitive data safely. If it gets hacked, the affected people can't do anything.

Everyone who has concerns about the safety of their data and won’t submit personal information required for KYC is excluded from using the service.

It’s clear that risks for normal users are inevitable when they are forced to give their personal data to unknown people or a centralized service. There is simply no guarantee that our personal data is safe there and even big companies with high security standards can be maliciously hacked.

As with all things in a digitized world, companies / organizations that collect KYC are vulnerable to hacks. We have seen that when big companies like Binance get hacked, the hackers are able to steal a large number of KYC materials.

These are just the events that have been reported. It is therefore not unlikely that this is just the tip of an iceberg of nasty KYC hacks that have not yet been publicly acknowledged, because such knowledge would, of course, harm the business of exchanges or the KYC providers themselves a lot. There is no doubt, that professional hackers are developing ways to successfully hack and obtain personal data relevant for passing KYC.

This leads to another problem: with KYC enforcement everywhere, personal documents are becoming a valuable black market commodity and there already exists a huge incentive to hack or steal identities. It is therefore inevitable that a huge illegal market for identities will arise if KYC should be enforced everywhere.
All users who are forced to perform KYC of any sort run the risk of their personal data ending up for sale on the black market. This in turn makes it easy for criminals to purchase "identity packages" composed of hacks on the black market which contain all the data they need to impersonate the user whose data was hacked, and to open an account under their name through which they can perform illegal activities.

Two days ago ccn.com released an article “Hacked Customer Data From World-Leading Cryptocurrency Exchanges For Sale On The Dark Web?” where on the darknet market called “Dread,” a vendor going by “ExploitDOT” is attempting to sell user data from the know-your-customer (KYC) data top cryptocurrency exchanges ask for, required by most jurisdictions.

Today my colleague contacted the seller who offered him the price 15 USD for each document (passport or ID, proof of address, selfie photo), totaling 45 USD per one person. It is necessary to buy at least 100 KYC identities (together for 4500 USD). The seller was willing to use a trusted escrow service for a crypto transaction which means this offer may be trustworthy.

Source

Hacked identities can be very valuable for criminals, especially if the identity can be tied to other details relevant for crimes against the affected individual. Some of these include:

• name and physical address (from various documents or bills)
• government-ID, passports, pictures or selfies
• biometric data (fingerprint, face- or iris-scan)
• various data from utility bills, source of wealth, employer or bank account
• passwords, used e-mail address
• used crypto addresses including deposits / withdrawals (+ linking other related addresses via blockchain research)
  

Criminals can use this data in various nasty ways:

• They can use it to commit criminal activities simply by impersonating the person whose data was hacked and open an account under their name through which they can perform illegal activities.

• Criminals can use some of the data to access other accounts of the person whose data got hacked:
  
  • resetting accounts via e-mail address
  • resetting accounts via biometric data
  • trying to hack other sites using the same password

• One of the worst aspects of this would be the possibility of a criminal collecting enough hacked data about a person to evaluate how profitable a robbery would be. This would require:
  
  • the physical address of a victim (obtained from a personal document), and
  • information about their wealth (obtained from deposits / withdrawals on the account from linked crypto addresses, or documents like source of income, source of wealth etc).
  Such a set of data could be enough to assess a victim for a possible robbery. Even if the scammers are located in a different country, they could sell information about “promising robbery targets” to other criminals in the home country of the victim.

• Alternatively, criminals can collect and match data with other hacked data to make the data set more valuable for resale.

KYC is encouraging scams

In addition to identity theft, KYC offers a new revenue of profit for scammers, which is a currently rising scam strategy called “KYC scams” that are executed as follows:

• Users deposit crypto on a service without requiring KYC.
• After enough people have deposited, the site announces that KYC is now mandatory and all funds are frozen.
• The site blackmails users into performing a KYC. If a user does not want to do this, their crypto is lost, seized by the exchange. If the exchange is a scam, they additionally have valuable identity documents of their customers that they could sell or use for themselves.
• The users have no chance of defending themselves.

The same strategy is also used by bounties, especially altcoin bounties from shitcoin ICOs. Therefore, it is important to be aware of KYC scams. These happen especially with unknown exchanges or shitcoin bounties. It is recommended to use only trustworthy, large exchanges which could not afford to lose its credibility by pulling a KYC scam.

Under no circumstance should users perform KYC for KYC scammers. A reputable exchange will always use the terms and conditions under which the user has deposited their money, and send a KYC implementation notification while users still can withdraw funds at lower limits. This way, users can have a chance to withdraw their cryptocurrencies without being scammed.


KYC helps scammers stay undetected

KYC is highly appreciated by all sorts of scammers because criminals can remain undetected and continue their illicit activities by just using hacked or stolen identities to pass KYC. When a lot of money is involved, nothing will stop them:

• There is already a big pool of identity sets on the black market available, mostly from other KYCs hosted or hacked by scammers. The more complete the data sets are, the more valuable they get. To pass a KYC, the criminals only need to acquire the relevant data records on the black market.
• Additionally, the scammers could also organize an ICO themselves or set up a scam exchange and request a KYC there. They can determine the data they need based on what they intend to do with it later. This would make it possible for criminals to obtain specific KYC data for a selected ICO or exchange.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, some "experts" are now proposing to enforce an even more excessive KYC procedure that crypto service customers must adhere to, including the submission of better quality scans or more data, including biometric data. This line of thinking is utterly wrong because such measures are likely to endanger the safety of users even more:

• Biometric data (fingerprint, face or iris scan), can also be used for illicit purposes once they end up being hacked by criminals. The damage to those affected is perhaps several-fold worse as biometric data is among the most sensitive that can be disclosed.
• An improvement in the quality of the submitted data only means that hackers can receive even more accurate and therefore more valuable data. This improved level of quality makes it easier for criminals to impersonate others.
• Criminals are increasingly starting to reconstruct missing parts based on existing, stolen KYC records. Methods of circumventing video identification, such as “deep-fake videos,” are developing rapidly. The production of realistic masks, which can hardly be distinguished from real people, is another way to fool identification process. Methods have already been presented at the 2018 35c3 in Leipzig, through which video identification procedures were demonstrated to be circumvented.
  
  These techniques may be at a very early stage, and their results not perfect, but in principle they are already possible. The prospects of rising profitability in the event that KYC is enforced everywhere excessively incentivizes scammers to develop KYC-faking methods to an even greater degree.
  
  In principle, only a few criminals are needed: those who are able to verify accounts with hacked data. This service could be sold to other criminals via the darknet, which alone would make it possible to completely undermine a KYC process.

Therefore, if KYC was designed to stop criminals from doing their job, it has already failed miserably. There are probably millions of KYC data sets on the black market, with this number increasing daily as KYC enforcement becomes more widespread.

With the latest emerging techniques for manipulating all online KYC procedures, criminal gangs are well positioned to verify accounts and sell them to other criminals at a high price on the black market. Alternatively, they could simply hack already-verified accounts and sell them.

Therefore, criminals with evil intentions have a large number of options to choose from to circumvent most kinds of KYC practices.


Conclusion: KYC is useless

The primary result of this evaluation is apparent: KYC is not only useless but ultimately encourages what it is supposed to prevent. KYC creates new areas of crime (identity trading of real users) and boosts existing areas of crime (criminals can now go undetected by abusing the identities of innocent users). It also blatantly endangers the privacy and security of all customers.

Therefore, the advertised effectiveness of digital KYC in crypto unfortunately exists only in theory. The community would be better off acknowledging the fact that not only KYC is useless, but it is also dangerous and promotes crime. Since documents for KYC are sold illegally on the web or are even faked by artificial intelligence, KYC doesn’t actually prove anything anymore.

In fact - KYC is encouraging scams and crime as well as endangering the privacy and safety of all customers through identity theft. This creates a dangerous dynamic for users who are forced to perform a KYC check: tons of personal documents are being collected by criminals and will likely go public in the future to a degree we have not seen before.


How to protect from KYC?

Be careful and try to evaluate whether using the service is really worth risking identity theft, including all of the associated negative consequences. Also be mindful of what addresses you link to an account should it be hacked. Linking your identity with bitcoin / altcoin addresses cannot be undone if someone knows how to associate them.

It is recommended to use trusted services without KYC like P2P exchanges or you can trade here on the forum using a trusted escrow.

Avoid KYC for everything else:

• No KYC for altcoin / shitcoin bounties or altcoin / shitcoin airdrops where the owners are likely scammers or incompetent.
• No KYC for shitty exchanges where the owners are likely scammers or incompetent.
• No KYC for low amounts of money where it’s just not worth the risk (this probably includes everything that doesn’t make you rich).

It’s important to point out the dangers of KYC as a preventative measure. After all, it is only a matter of time before a major KYC scandal makes the general public aware of how dangerous and useless KYC actually is. Unfortunately, it will be too late when it happens, and the damage will already be done. You are welcome to link this text so that as many users (and providers) are aware of KYC’s flaws as possible.

In particular, providers who abuse the security of users to fill their own pockets should be aware of their irresponsible behavior.

It is recommended to use a provider that does not request KYC information (or whose limits are justified). This is not only to protect ourselves, but also to support providers who protect their customers.


Final note: I have been writing this text for a while now, since early 2019. In the time since I initially summarized most of the known facts, there have been several informative articles published on the internet that analyze the problems of KYC in detail and call it out.
The points I have made so far have not only been confirmed when reading through these articles, but I have to admit, I underestimated the danger and uselessness of the KYC by far in my original version. The technology and the criminal market for KYC is already far more advanced than I feared and is likely to become even more lucrative due to the increasingly excessive enforcement of KYC. Criminal fraudsters have discovered KYC for their own benefit to commit a new strategy of crimes (such as the KYC scam), to conduct identity trades, and at the same time, to continue their criminal activities unnoticed with identities of innocent users.
It would be useful for security, data protection and crime prevention if it was quickly recognized by the public that digital KYC is not a solution, but instead a risk that endangers every innocent user.


Keep in mind:

The digital world isn’t as simple as many people believe. As an average crypto or internet user, you may make many mistakes, but just a single wrong move is enough to cause risk even if everything else is perfect.
Scammers are often intelligent, hiding traces of their activity and taking advantage of misconceptions. One such misconception is KYC for centralized services, which are often easy to attack and bypass.
If we, the average users, don’t care for our privacy, don’t educate ourselves or don’t claim our right of protection from criminals on the web, we may get into trouble very quickly. Privacy means protection from such scammers, and it’s a valuable good which all of us are entitled to claim. Privacy is not a crime, it’s our protection on the web against criminals and a personal right which we should try to secure whenever possible.

Feel free to share this article or translate it to your local board (you can reserve a translation via PM to avoid double translations). There’s a lot of misinformation promoting a non-existent need for KYC, but if people look into the details it'll help the prevention of many crimes and scams.


More interesting articles pointing out the danger of KYC:

https://medium.com/@wilderko/how-does-kyc-aml-pose-a-serious-threat-to-your-privacy-and-should-not-be-used-at-all-88f7acd3f3b

https://medium.com/mycrypto/be-careful-with-your-kyc-documents-978ab532f2be

https://blog.goodaudience.com/the-unseen-danger-of-kyc-e3e1c4448eee


Translations

Language	translated by	Title
___________________________	_____________________	_______________________________________________________________________
Română (Romanian)	GazetaBitcoin	De ce procesul KYC este unul deosebit de periculos – și inutil
Français	Perkjeff	Pourquoi le KYC est extrêmement dangereux - et inutile? | Par 1miau
Hrvatski (Croatian)	TheNineClub	Zašto je KYC iznimno opasan - i beskoristan
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)	masulum	Mengapa KYC Sangat Berbahaya dan Tidak Berguna (by 1miau)
Pyccкий (Russian)	zasad@	Пoчeмy KYC чpeзвычaйнo oпaceн и бecпoлeзeн
Pilipinas	crwth	Bakit ang KYC ay lubhang nakakatakot at walang silbi (hindi maaasahan)
Português (Portuguese)	cryptobaboon	[Tradução] Por que o KYC é extremamente perigoso - e inútil
Türkçe (Turkish)	yslyv	Neden KYC Çok Tehlikeli ve Gereksiz?
العربية (Arabic)	Ryutaro	KYC - تحرير المفهوم و تنوير العقول
India	erikalui	KYC इतना खतरनाक और बेकार क्यों है?
Việt (Vietnamese)	Crypto Carabao Group	Vì sao KYC cực kỳ nguy hiểm – và vô dụng
Polski	Tytanowy Janusz	Czemu KYC jest skrajnie niebezpiecznie i pozbawione celu
Deutsch (German)	1miau	Warum KYC keine Lösung, sondern eine Gefahr ist
Nigeria (Naija)	sokani	Why KYC dey extremely dangerous – and usesless

Reserving new translations is currently not available.

[1714008840]

1714008840

[20kevin20]

Agreeing with your post. Never gonna be a fan of KYC, I avoid it as much as possible. The KYC-based scams are getting more popular than ever, and it's concerning. They either have to find a much better way to handle terrorism funding & money laundering or they need to just stop it. Exchanges and wallet platforms are now using it as a weapon against their own customers as if they have the right and authority to hold a customer's funds and, in the end, to basically confiscate the frozen sum. I doubt even half of their procedures is legal.

A few hours ago I was looking to join the Brave network to get some little extra revenue off browsing the internet.. too bad they require mandatory KYC..

[coupable]

Excellent thread  

I totally agree with your analysis even i did KYC verification somewhow in the past. I stopped doing this since a long time and avoid to use services asking for my docs.
When from another approach, some say that as we are still living in a centralized world we still don't have better options to make trades and investment in the crypto world as almost main services are made by centralized entities who are also forced to obey SEC legislations. Some others think that we can do KYC with registered companies so we can take plaints if any proven suspection .
Most of people are familiar with revealing their identities like they do in twitterbook, and also familiar with submitting their perso info docs as they do in Banks, so most of them keep the same behavior in the crypto environment and i doubt if we can really rise the flags about this .

[1miau]

Most of people are familiar with revealing their identities like they do in twitterbook, and also familiar with submitting their perso info docs as they do in Banks, so most of them keep the same behavior in the crypto environment and i doubt if we can really rise the flags about this .

Yeah, this Twitter / Facebook "issue" is causing a general lack of awareness how important it is to protect their own privacy. And another important difference between social media platforms such as Twitter / Facebook and enforced KYC for centralized services: if I don't want to use Facebook or Twitter I'm free to avoid it, so I may disagree if people post their whole life there, it's their problem, it's not affecting me. Nobody is forced to use Facebook or Twitter but people are forced to do KYC when they want to use an important service or even worse if deposited funds are frozen. More platforms implementing KYC means we won't have any other choice; we are excluded if we don't send KYC documents and don't want to risk our documents of being stolen, sold, hacked, collected or analyzed.

Exchanges and wallet platforms are now using it as a weapon against their own customers as if they have the right and authority to hold a customer's funds and, in the end, to basically confiscate the frozen sum. I doubt even half of their procedures is legal.

Exactly and nobody really cares that our funds are lost.  
Scammers paradise...

[cryptoaddictchie]

I did some KYC before when I need to claim my bounty tokens for altcoins. But a bit later on, I stop it due to these risk impose by giving away important documents that we own. Maybe this is the thing I regret doing. Moreover, if your documents falls in the wrong hand then that's could turn into a bloody identity theft.

But I'm indeed do some KYC process on some huge exchange such as Binance. I just hoping this one wouldn't be compromise by hackers and steal some vital info of their users. But probably they will prefer cash over some info right? but they can have both!

KYC purposes for investors are helpful but please if only for campaign purposes. Maybe other's should think twice. I already regret this, and hope new guys, wouldn't easily attracted by free money or it is you would lose more in the end.

Thanks for this informative and clear thread about KYC.

[TGD]

Very detailed explanation about KYC.


As a business owner perspective, KYC is essential to verify user and to protect there business from any illegal attempt of it's user and also I believe that this is a requirements of AMLC.
It's really risky to do KYC for an unknown services and many fraud services are copying all legit services doing.

[Bttzed03]

This is quite a long read and I understand why it took you some time before you finally posted it here.

I used to not think too much about the importance of my privacy and that's why I've also submitted sensitive data to some bounty campaigns and low-tier exchanges. When I read articles about those data being sold in the black market, I started to worry but I can no longer do anything about the information I've given before. I can only hope that they were completely discarded.

To this day, I cringe every time I read some hunters and traders say that only people who avoid KYC are scammers/cheaters. What's even worse is that they're fine with how some companies treat KYC by hiding behind "compliance" and having them submit thru a google form!

[nakamura12]

KYC is really useless for people who are using their services or platform. We don't know that the platform is legit or not and once we submitted our personal information it may be stolen and use our information to do illegal acts that will cause us problems. It may be useful for business to have KYC but it's 100% helpful. I agree with op and I prefer not using any platform that ask KYC before you able to use their platform.

[DdmrDdmr]

I was wondering yesterday on how this case would end:
https://www.coindesk.com/british-court-freezes-860000-in-bitcoin-linked-to-ransomware-payout
(detailed court order https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2019/3556.html).

In the above case, a UK court has ordered Bitfinex to freeze an equivalent of 860k$ in BTC on an account, after the aid of Chainanalysis led to tracing the funds paid in a ransomware case, performed upon an insurance Company (and paid out in BTC by the insurer of the insurance company).

Along side freezing the assets, Bitfinex is being asked to dox the account owner, and that is where the uncertainty is as to what KYC data the ransomware perpetrators used: their own personal data, or yours (generic third party)? The outcome may be considered good or bad in this case, depending on the wit of the perpetrators.

[mu_enrico]

KYC still can be useful though, but perhaps not in crypto space (AML) where the security of your data is not protected enough. For example, for uber-like service in my country, some companies require drivers to do a selfie every day (not only KYC) to guarantee the integrity of drivers' ID for safety reasons. I think users are happy with this rule.

KYC is everywhere, starting from education enrolment, banks, to medical records. You can't be anonymous for this thing, right? However, I agree if the problem is about KYC for AML purposes, plus incompetency concerning data security will bring more problems than benefits.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

No doubt KYC is extremely dangerous and useless especially as the risk associated with it isn't sending the right information towards an industy basing its selling point on decentralization but after considering the current developments of the industry, it'll be odd thinking the industry can succeed without implementing some centralized feature like KYC verification. The cryptocurrency industry is getting global and constantly attempting to get the government approval as a recognized currency therefore it'll have to sacrificed some of its decentralized feature to achieve this purpose like the KYC requirements to avoid money laundering.

The issue now is to enlighten the community to avoid falling victim to scammers who'll be leveraging on this development to scam newbies or gullible community users. Just as you have started, total avoidance in sending your private details to anyhow project like bounties, giveaways, newly launched exchange with no reputation of trustworthiness, airdrops etc is encourage since you can never be sure who are behind this projects.

[Upgrade00]

The reason why KYC scams are still prevalent is that most people do not value their personal documents/information and also do not know how it can be maliciously utilized against them. And since it has become very popular even among even the so-called 'trustworthy' websites and exchanges so it seems legitimate when newer sites ask for the same information.

I use Twitter regularly and frequently come across tweets asking users to post their account details or some other information, such as; mother's maiden name or favorite color. This information could be used to draw up a pattern to connect various information about the person.

[20kevin20]

Exactly and nobody really cares that our funds are lost.  
Scammers paradise...

Probably because no lawsuits have been opened yet against the exchanges and wallets going for this scam.

If everyone who fell in their trap and got scammed by them took measures against them, they would either stop scamming themselves or the authorities would.

But let's not forget the fact that many of those falling to KYC traps prefer to lose their money rather than giving them identity documents.. So they keep thriving off that.

[Annisa_crypto]

Thank you so much, buddy, for the detailed clarification of KYC. You have mentioned as much as the details which were not known to some of us. Also, I tried some exchanges in the past where they had mandatory KYC no matter whether you are buying crypto or exchanging crypto. For 70$ crypto buying also they needed KYC.So now I avoid using this kind of service who needs KYC for a small number of dollars.

[Coyster]

There are a lot of people who do not know how dangerous KYC can be when carried out on the wrong platform or on sketchy or dubious establishment. Newbies would help themselves if they read this post, take it seriously, not just reading it, but doing what is required of them to evade KYC scammers.

Many users have given their KYC information when they were new, and though they have long stopped that, but who knows, for now it may not have had any repercussion, but it may later on since nobody knows where and in whose hands those documents are in now, so newbies should not make that same mistake.

[Taskford]

There are a lot of people who do not know how dangerous KYC can be when carried out on the wrong platform or on sketchy or dubious establishment. Newbies would help themselves if they read this post, take it seriously, not just reading it, but doing what is required of them to evade KYC scammers.

Many users have given their KYC information when they were new, and though they have long stopped that, but who knows, for now it may not have had any repercussion, but it may later on since nobody knows where and in whose hands those documents are in now, so newbies should not make that same mistake.

They are innocent to know the risk and mostly we can see those people on airdrop and bounty campaign where they easily bring up their ID with the scammers and it's super dangerous since the scammere could recycle and use their identities for another scam nor sell it to the other platforms for bad intentions.

[stompix]

Yeah, KYC started well on paper.
Then it was badly implemented and was abused, it leads to people doing this only to harvest data and if we talk about the crypto enviroment...it's a disaster.

I have a 10+ account on PayPal, all they ever asked from me was that confirmation code from the first charge they put on my card.
And that's all they need to know in reality, via my bank they have all the details they need for KYC, a mugshot from an individual that could not even exist (hello faceapp) and a bill from the gas company that I receive in pdf format and I can edit how much I want it before printing is not really KYC.

But when it comes to crypto, it's hilarious.
KYC for what? For receiving some shitty tokens for some other shitty tokens in jurisdictions those are not even regulated?
And who is doing this KYC? The 99.9% scammy ICOs that will run with the money before any agencies can even hear of their business?

Anyhow, nothing will change.
A million people will come to this topic and say that KYC is dangerous and people shouldn't do it and one day later  999 999 of them will send their pictures, their IDs, their cat pedigree and a list of their's wife girlfriends with who they've cheated for 10 lollapalooza coins.

[20kevin20]

Anyhow, nothing will change.
A million people will come to this topic and say that KYC is dangerous and people shouldn't do it and one day later  999 999 of them will send their pictures, their IDs, their cat pedigree and a list of their's wife girlfriends with who they've cheated for 10 lollapalooza coins.

Couldn't agree more with you. If everyone would stand against KYC, it would MAYBE make a change.

I can buy gold worth $10k from The Netherlands and nobody would request my ID. Meanwhile, a $5 deposit on a KYC-enabled exchange could be frozen if the exchange considers it suspicious. How does that make sense?

I think money laundering and terrorism happens more with precious metals & fiat than with crypto, I mean it's common sense. Gold & precious metals have been around since before we all were born, Bitcoin is still growing up and nobody has been able to prove through facts that a certain percentage of BTC transactions are money laundering and terrorism funding. It's all bullshit. I haven't provided a single document of identification and I never will.

[The Cryptovator]

I am not fan of KYC those related crypto-currency. But unfortunately almost platform are asking for KYC which is really annoying and crypto currency not designed for this kind of KYC processor. However, I forced to submit KYC on Bittrex for withdrawals when they were implemented KYC policy. As I remembered, I have submitted KYC on Binance & Bittrex only. Even I don't like to use any other exchange right now due to KYC drama. I know it's very dangerous for us if in case leak or owner turned into scammer. So always better avoid shady exchange if they ask for KYC. I don't how KYC will prevent so called money laundering on crypto-currency. It's just a worst idea even for crypto-currency community.

[20kevin20]

I am not fan of KYC those related crypto-currency. But unfortunately almost platform are asking for KYC which is really annoying and crypto currency not designed for this kind of KYC processor. However, I forced to submit KYC on Bittrex for withdrawals when they were implemented KYC policy. As I remembered, I have submitted KYC on Binance & Bittrex only. Even I don't like to use any other exchange right now due to KYC drama. I know it's very dangerous for us if in case leak or owner turned into scammer. So always better avoid shady exchange if they ask for KYC. I don't how KYC will prevent so called money laundering on crypto-currency. It's just a worst idea even for crypto-currency community.

Bisq and Komodo's Atomic DEX are your answers. They're working way slower than centralized exchanges, but your funds aren't at risk of being frozen. No more KYC, no more centralization.. we have to move there and stop using these scam exchanges.