Best Country to avoid KYC

[whereami]

Greetings.

We operate an established cryptocurrency exchange which fundamentally does not believe in storing personal information of its users.

We are currently assessing relocation options for 2020.

Any suggestions or comments on the most appropriate countries which will protect the privacy of crypto traders?

 

[Tax Cow]

Do you want a license for your exchange, or is it fully a shadow operation?

 

[Sols]

No way to avoid KYC if you provide a financial service and want to touch actual money by accessing the normal financial system (i.e. taking deposits in fiat or letting customers withdraw fiat). There might be some backwater hellhole whose local laws haven't caught up with international standards but realistically, your options are none.

 

[Tax Cow]

No way to avoid KYC if you provide a financial service and want to touch actual money by accessing the normal financial system (i.e. taking deposits in fiat or letting customers withdraw fiat). There might be some backwater hellhole whose local laws haven't caught up with international standards but realistically, your options are none.

That's true.

Once the rumors go out that your exchange does no KYC, you'll lose the banking relationship which facilitates your fiat wires. Absent the KYC checks, neither will you have an outlook for obtaining any banking relationships without telling a lie. You're putting your customers at an unreasonable risk either way.

In your place, I'd consider KYC-in-name-only as the best of bad options:

Ask your customers to upload the minimum requirement of documents (gov ID + address), but send everything they upload to /dev/null without a verification. Don't approve the accounts before 2-3 business days to make it plausible the KYC checks are taking place - send a few automatic E-mails about the "on-going document verification process". That should keep your banana business alive for a little while longer.

 

[whereami]

Thanks for the information, I appreciate it.

To clarify, we are a true cryptocurrency exchange. We exchange crypto for crypto. BTC for LTC, etc, etc.

We are not currently interested in fiat conversion and if we were that would be a separate entity and process.

Looking for countries that are positioned well for this.

Thanks kindly

 

[nomad999]

Binance allows up to 2BTC worth of crypto withdrawal per day with only an email address, not sure where they are based exactly as it seems rather complicated, they mention Malta a while ago but this got refuted recently so a bit in the dark ...
would investigate there maybe.

best way might be a swiss non profit working on a DAO exchange with non-custodial asset with some smart way to get some profit from a token or whatever.

just ideas ...

 

[Spinat]

So you want to look into Switzerland, Malta or the Balitc countries for your business. KYC mandatory but facilities for your crypto adventure are good there.

 

[Martin Everson]

Ask your customers to upload the minimum requirement of documents (gov ID + address), but send everything they upload to /dev/null without a verification. Don't approve the accounts before 2-3 business days to make it plausible the KYC checks are taking place - send a few automatic E-mails about the "on-going document verification process". That should keep your banana business alive for a little while longer.

You sound like an ex-Satabank compliance officer

We operate an established cryptocurrency exchange which fundamentally does not believe in storing personal information of its users.

Well that rules out planet earth then.

Any suggestions or comments on the most appropriate countries which will protect the privacy of crypto traders?

Sadly no.

I also wouldn't want to be caught running such an operation. You must not value your freedom much at this present time im guessing.

 

[Tax Cow]

You sound like an ex-Satabank compliance officer

Hey hey! I'm still in business

 

[khinkali]

Well that rules out planet earth then.

Surely there's some place X where you could run a crypto to crypto exchange for customers from some place Y, where you're not required to do KYC or have a wallet license? X and Y are presumably not US or EU, but it's can't be illegal everywhere.

You'd be at risk of sanctions violations from third countries (US, EU, etc) if you service the wrong people, but in principle?

 

[Sols]

Surely there's some place X where you could run a crypto to crypto exchange for customers from some place Y, where you're not required to do KYC or have a wallet license? X and Y are presumably not US or EU, but it's can't be illegal everywhere.

You'd be at risk of sanctions violations from third countries (US, EU, etc) if you service the wrong people, but in principle?

Yes, but do you really want to be the first and only crypto exchange in Mauritania?

 

[khinkali]

@Sols they do have the world's longest train!

 

[Spinat]

Yes, but do you really want to be the first and only crypto exchange in Mauritania?

first mover, what is wrong with that?

 

[Martin Everson]

Surely there's some place X where you could run a crypto to crypto exchange for customers from some place Y, where you're not required to do KYC or have a wallet license? X and Y are presumably not US or EU, but it's can't be illegal everywhere.

A hosting service on a low earth orbit satellite maybe all that will work for you .

Issue is not where you claim to be operating or register your business but where geographically the servers etc will be physically located in order to prevent them being shutdown by a third-party request like the FBI.

You may want to look at the architecture of your exchange and go from centralized to distributed and create a DEX like like etherdelta etc where zero KYC is needed to buy and sell last time I tried it.

 

[whereami]

A hosting service on a low earth orbit satellite maybe all that will work for you .

Issue is not where you claim to be operating or register your business but where geographically the servers etc will be physically located in order to prevent them being shutdown by a third-party request like the FBI.

You may want to look at the architecture of your exchange and go from centralized to distributed and create a DEX like like etherdelta etc where zero KYC is needed to buy and sell last time I tried it.

Thank you, we are definitely expanding to a DeX model, however the likes of etherdelta, cryptobridge, bitshares etc are not really immune to regulation on their own nor are they truly DEXs. They are in fact centralized and can be s**t down the same way.

The problem with true Dex's is that they are inconvenient and.....nobody uses them. True Dex's have been around since late 2017 and and to date there is no demand. Not that there never will be. But that is their state.

I do agree that the servers need to be in good standing. But again looking at most of the top crypto exchanges they do not have mandatory kyc. So we are not really outside or status quo in what we're looking to do

 

[Martin Everson]

But again looking at most of the top crypto exchanges they do not have mandatory kyc.

Then realistically you need to host with a offshore server provider such as Shinjiru that offer anonymous hosting. Many years ago like 18 years or so I used to operate various sites from their servers related to the offshore world. They claimed back then to be resilient to law enforcement and still do today in 2020 but you need to be skeptical of their claim. Getting licensing is still best route and to do it all regulated however.

Offshore Dedicated Servers | Managed Servers | Anti DDOS Services | Offshore Web Hosting | Private Asia Web Hosting Service Provider | Dedicated Server

 

[whereami]

That's fair, thank you.

And for the country itself? Binance is in Malta. But they say they are not in Malta.

Ha.

Kucoin, poloniex, kraken many of the others also vague.

 

[tux]

That's fair, thank you.

And for the country itself? Binance is in Malta. But they say they are not in Malta.

Ha.

Kucoin, poloniex, kraken many of the others also vague.

Binance is registred on Cayman Islands, not Malta. In what way are Kucoin and Kraken vague?

 

[whereami]

Binance is registered in Cayman Islands, and many other places. Including Malta. They have long stated that they are based in Malta until the last few days and this was clear to everyone . Until it wasn't.

Now they are clarifying that they are registered in Malta, but not licensed there. And completely changed their stance on where they operate (they are also not licenced in Cayman Islands).

Kraken may or may not be doing something similar in Australia now.

Kucoin may or may not be based in Hong Kong, and/or Singapore.

 

[nomad999]

Binance is also registered as a Seychelles entity among others. They probably distanced themselves from Malta only recently because of recent AML5 BS EU legislation.