Bitmain, the major manufacturer of cryptocurrency miners recently announced a new policy which instructs new and existing members of its platform to submit their KYC (Know Your Customer) details before they are allowed to buy products sold on the company’s official portal.
The New Policy
The recent decision by the crypto mining company as disclosed by WhalePanda, a pseudonymous blogger who discusses bitcoin and other developments in the cryptoworld at large, was revealed in a tweet showing screenshots evidence of a mail by the company to this claim. The mail is said to have been sent to all users registered on the platform.
The tweet shared by WhalePanda reads:
Bitmain now requires full KYC to buy miners "due to regulatory compliance requirements". I don't know if this has got anything to do with the IPO or with the government but the timing for sure is interesting. pic.twitter.com/OiVDqM2YZq
— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) August 23, 2018
The mail instructs users of the platform to submit their identification documents between the 24th of August and 24th of September, 2018, giving users one month after which they will not be able to purchase any of the devices sold by Bitmain until they do so.
Different levels of verification as described by the company give users different privileges. Once the user is verified after documents have been submitted, the user will be able to purchase on the local version of the website with a purchase limit of Y 300,000.
However, those who have passed authentication can purchase both on the local and international versions of the website. Customers who don’t present their documents to be verified by the 24th of September will not be able to make purchases of any kind on the platform.
Crypto Community Rage As They Ask Questions
This action taken by Bitmain has got many questioning what “Decentralization” really means.
Among many comments, a Redditor shared his frustration, stating,
“decentralization in the purest sense finished about a year ago when all the stringent KYC/AML bullshit was implemented on the exchanges. The amount of surveillance you have to endure to trade crypto is almost as bad as when using banks. Yet very few people seem to complain about this, as long as prices are going up.”
It is indeed an eye raising concern as to why an entity banking on decentralization would make an informative process like KYC mandatory for its customers. It is hard to see the company any different from traditional financial institutions that require all sorts of information about their customers before they can start using the services.
