KYC - Is it a good or bad thing In the crypto scene

I remember the days when I was making research regarding what crypto currencies were and what usefulness it held relating to finance (prior to that I always heard it was the future of financial institutions) and how it could shape how transactions were made.

One of the first things I read about was about the Bitcoin and the why's that led to it's creation by Satoshi Nakamoto. It was particularly created as a system of transaction that didn't conform to the usual rules of engagement of traditional systems like the banks which are centralized in nature. In essence it allowed you some measure of freedom which wasn't available with other systems of making transactions.

I had the trust wallet which only required that I kept my keys safe, but after awhile I registered on binance and was required to do some registration before I could use the exchange. I later found out we also had centralized and decentralized exchanges with majority of these exchanges also acting as a wallet.

The problem was initially I didn't want to use any of my information but later on i eventually did it. which brings me to the concept of KYC also called know your customer where customers are required to part with certain personal although most times basic information about them during registration.

For centralized exchanges, this identification is necessary since you don't have to worry about loosing your keys. Although the major advantage to this was in the use against money laundering which was a major loophole that would've been exploited by the criminally minded.

But with continuous growth in popularity and trading involving crypto, partucularly on large centralized exchanges like binance, it looks like the centralized systems are fast taking over what was supposed to be a decentralized space for transactions which number one goal should've been protection of customer identities.

KYC is quite beneficial, but in the long run is it a good or bad thing if crypto currency transactions continue to grow on the centralized exchanges.

[First Posted Using](https://leofinance.io/@hazmat/ask-leo-kyc-is-it-a-good-or-bad-thing-in-the-crypto-scene)