Skip to main content

Bitstamp Is Asking Users Who Want to Withdraw a Lot of Questions



Customers of Slovenia's Bitstamp exchange are being forced to jump through hoops to meet an unprecedented level of compliance. A widely circulated image, purporting to reveal Bitstamp's enhanced KYC procedure, has been attracting a lot of attention. The document requests screenshots of other cryptocurrency exchange profiles, bank account statements showing fiat deposits to third party exchanges, and signed messages from the BTC and ETH addresses the customer intends to use.

Bitstamp Wants to Really Know Its Customers
Bitstamp Is Asking Users Who Want to Withdraw a Lot of QuestionsCryptocurrency exchanges are obligated to closely adhere to the law in their jurisdiction. Government agencies are inherently suspicious of bitcoin, and regulators won't hesitate to shut down exchanges that are found to have facilitated money laundering or conducted inadequate KYC procedures. But in their quest to be seen as squeaky clean, some exchanges are asking intrusive and unwarranted questions of their customers, with Bitstamp the most egregious example, as exemplified by a screenshot that reportedly originated from the European exchange.

Bitstamp has a generally positive reputation within the cryptocurrency world. With a pedigree dating back to 2011, the site has been around since the time of Mt Gox, and save for a hack of 19,000 BTC in 2015, has emerged from bitcoin's wild west days unscathed. Europe's oldest exchange records close to $1 billion in trading volume each day, with bitcoin, ripple, and ethereum the leading currencies. On the surface, Bitstamp is a model in how to run an exchange, with its CEO Nejc Kodrič lauded for his business acumen and entrepreneurship.

Bitstamp's Enhanced KYC Takes Knowing Your Customer to the Next LevelThere's just one issue that keeps dogging Bitstamp, and indeed several other exchanges for that matter: withdrawing and depositing fiat currency is fiendishly difficult. News.Bitcoin.com has previously written about the difficulty of cashing out large amounts of money from major exchanges. The situation was best put by a user in one Telegram trading group, who wrote: "Good luck withdrawing anything from Bittrex, it's hotel California".

You Can Cash Out Anytime but You Can Never Leave
It is Bitstamp though which takes the biscuit for protracted and unnecessarily invasive KYC. Thanks to Bitstamp's radio silence regarding the document at the center of the debate, it is hard to gauge its authenticity. But wherever the document originated, it illustrates two things:

1) the lack of communication from many exchanges that allows such rumors to circulate unchecked and 2) insane KYC requests from exchanges have gotten so extraordinary that it's now hard to tell what's real and what's a spoof. What is indisputable is that Bitstamp customers have been aggrieved at the exchange's KYC policy for months. Bitstamp's Reddit page features numerous complaints from users, who quote official correspondence that is worded very similarly to the screenshot cited earlier, including the use of phrases such as "kindly ask". One such missive from Bitstamp reportedly reads:

To which the user reasonably replies: "All my money is taxed and legal, but I don't look forward spending HOURS of my time getting my financial documents from the banks, copies of my pay checks from my employer and everything they asked for. It will literally take hours over several days do get what they asked for. What happens if I don't give them the documentation?"

Cryptocurrency exchanges, either out of fear of being shut down or an overzealous desire to prove they're above board, have created an environment of fear in which everyone is a suspect and innocence must be proven, not assumed. Faced with onerous and invasive KYC requests which often seem to have no basis in the law, it is no surprise that many individuals are taking their custom elsewhere, be it P2P exchanges such as Localbitcoins.com or to crypto exchanges that treat their clients with courtesy and respect.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is iDice?

iDice is a dice betting Dapp fueled by the use of the Ethereum organize. eg. iDice lets in players do several things and having such an innovative new token on the ETHEREUM Platform, we had to write an article about this new project. Guess on the space by the use of keeping up iDice tokens and best of all 100% of all benefit iDice acquires is dispersed among token holders, related to the amount of tokens they dangle. iDice amusement code is decentralized and changeless. Such gigantic building fees highlight a rising requirement for experienced, fair and cast Dapps. iDice iDice is an control which gives a provably affordable and simple, virtual Ethereum dice betting Dapp. The house edge will be set intensely and token holders have an atypical esteem that is dependably equiva- loaned to the house edge. iDice has a fully simple provide code accessible at etherscan.io. The payout of recreations is many times speedy. Provably Fair iDice uses open provide blockchain...

DENT: THE World First Tokenizing Portable Information Trade

You may be confused on all the exciting Ethereum projects, but therefore i make sure to follow allof them and choose the best for you. If you want to read about a more interesting project, then DENT is the way to go. I will be able to advice on a few tokens that can be bought out there which clearly we likewise might occu : Estimated token incentive on ETH presented within the token deal: 152,000 ETH (Relying on sorts via crowdsale) 100 Billion (100,000,000,000) the amount of DENT Tokens made, of which 70% is bought on token deal, a minimum of 35% can be stored for customers with littler spending plans. For the ones of you who're eager about ico smartcontract prolong that we regularly listen in non-obligatory cryptographic cash or altcoin without a doubt no longer outdoor to the workings of undertakings like this. Evaluated swapping scale: 1 ETH = 400,000 DENT 30% will keep on DENT Wi-fi for DENT shopper motivating forces and compensations Bills may well be made via ETH...

Fake Libra scams pose new challenge for Facebook

Almost a year after Facebook's Libra was first announced, the outlook for the stablecoin looks starkly different. Once hailed as a game-changer for digital currency, the project has been beset by delays and regulatory difficulties. Now, fake Libra scams are presenting an increasingly pressing new challenge for Libra and Facebook, with a proliferation of websites claiming to offer investment schemes denominated in fake Libra tokens. Dante Disparte, Deputy Chairman and Head of Policy and Communications for The Libra Association, said the organization was now constantly working to suppress fake Libra scams: "As we become aware of these sites, we work diligently to address them. We respond to inquiries concerning the validity of these pages, indicating that the only official website is Libra.org." "We are still in the early stages of this project and work to address issues like these as they arise," Disparte told Finance Magnates, urging people to report the scams. ...