KYC (Know Your Customer)
KYC, or Know Your Customer, is the process of verifying a customer's identity before or during onboarding, typically through government-issued identification, proof of address, and increasingly biometric checks, so a business knows who it is actually dealing with.
KYC, or Know Your Customer, is the process of verifying a customer's identity before or during onboarding, typically through government-issued identification, proof of address, and increasingly biometric checks, so a business knows who it is actually dealing with.
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Run a FreezeRadar scan for issuer-freeze signals, sanctions exposure, counterparty risk, and freezeable asset sensitivity before moving funds.
What it means
In crypto, KYC has become the primary dividing line between regulated and unregulated platforms: exchanges and custodians operating in most major jurisdictions are legally required to collect and verify identity documents before allowing withdrawals, while a growing but shrinking set of platforms operate with minimal or no KYC, which is a large part of why those platforms carry elevated risk labels.
KYC alone does not prevent illicit activity, it establishes who a customer claims to be, but says nothing about what that customer's wallets do afterward, which is precisely the gap that ongoing KYT and transaction monitoring exist to fill. A complete compliance program treats KYC as the starting point, not the entire control.
Real-world example
Opening an account on a major regulated exchange today typically requires submitting a government ID, a selfie for biometric matching, and often proof of address, a substantially higher bar than the email-only signup common across the industry a decade ago.
Related terms
In FreezeRadar
FreezeRadar complements KYC rather than replacing it, a scan tells you about a wallet's on-chain risk regardless of what identity information a counterparty has or has not provided.
Related reading
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By FreezeRadar Team
Research and product team behind FreezeRadar.