River Intelligence

What Is Bitcoin?

How to Buy Bitcoin

Sending and Receiving Bitcoin

How Do Bitcoin Transactions Work?

What Are Public and Private Keys?

Is Bitcoin Fair?

Bitcoin's Competitors

What Is Encryption?

How Bitcoin Can Scale

Bitcoin's Cultural Significance

Can Bitcoin Be Banned?

How Secure Is My Bitcoin?

Bitcoin as a Medium of Exchange

The Environmental Impact of Bitcoin

On-Chain vs. Off-Chain Bitcoin Transactions

Why People Invest in Bitcoin

Why Don't Altcoins Threaten Bitcoin?

Can Bitcoin's Hard Cap of 21 Million Be Changed?

The Myths of Bitcoin

Bitcoin's Predecessors

How Many Satoshis Are in a Bitcoin?

Who Creates New Bitcoin?

How Bitcoin Fees Work

What Is Money?

Bitcoin as an Investment

What Can You Buy With Bitcoin?

How to Avoid Bitcoin Scams

Can Bitcoin Be Hacked?

Bitcoin's Network Effect

➤Explore more in Bitcoin Basics

More ▼ Less ▲

Bitcoin Markets & Price

Why Does Bitcoin Have Value?

What Is Backing Bitcoin?

What Is Market Making?

Why Is Bitcoin Volatile?

What Is Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA)?

Who Are the Actors in Bitcoin Markets?

The History of Monetary Collapse in Zimbabwe

How Is the Bitcoin Price Determined?

What Is a Bitcoin ETF?

What Are Stablecoins?

What Is Collateralized Lending?

How to Read a Candlestick Chart

What Is Technical Analysis?

How Much of the World's Money Is in Bitcoin?

Bitcoin and the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) Model

The Efficient Market Hypothesis

Bitcoin Fundamental Analysis

Bitcoin Investment Performance Metrics

Understanding Trading Order Types

What Is the Bitcoin Market?

Will Deflation Hurt the Economy?

Real Bitcoin vs. Bitcoin Derivatives

Brokerages vs. Exchanges

How to Read a Bitcoin Depth Chart

➤Explore more in Bitcoin Markets and Price

More ▼ Less ▲

How to Store Bitcoin

Introduction to Bitcoin Wallets

How Bitcoin Wallets Work

What Is Bitcoin Cold Storage

Choosing a Bitcoin Wallet

Traditional Bank Account vs. Bitcoin Custodial Storage

➤Explore more in How to Store Bitcoin

More ▼ Less ▲

Bitcoin Mining

What Is Bitcoin Mining?

What Is a Bitcoin Halving?

What Will Happen After All Bitcoin Are Mined?

Bitcoin Mining Taxes and Regulation

How Bitcoin Mining Pools Work

➤Explore more in Bitcoin Mining

More ▼ Less ▲

Bitcoin Taxes & Estate Planning

Bitcoin Tax Accounting

Investing Bitcoin in a Trust

Investing in Bitcoin as a Family Office

Investing Bitcoin in Retirement Accounts

What Happens to Your Bitcoin When You Die?

➤Explore more in Bitcoin Taxes and Estate Planning

More ▼ Less ▲

Bitcoin & Blockchain Technology

What Is a Blockchain?

What Is a Bitcoin Node?

What Is the Lightning Network?

The Benefits of Blockchain

What Is the Double Spend Problem?

How to Read Bitcoin Data

What Is Bitcoin Core?

What Are Bitcoin Forks?

What Are Bitcoin Smart Contracts?

What Are Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs)?

What Is a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)?

The Difference Between Bitcoin and Blockchain

What Is Taproot and How Will It Benefit Bitcoin?

What Do Schnorr Signatures Do for Bitcoin?

Bitcoin's UTXO Model

What Is Segregated Witness (SegWit)?

What Is the Byzantine Generals Problem?

Why Should I Run a Bitcoin Node?

How Bitcoin Solves the Double Spend Problem

Pull Systems vs. Push Systems

How Bitcoin Uses Cryptography

➤Explore more in Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology

More ▼ Less ▲

Glossary

Lightning Network

Public Key

SegWit

➤Explore more in Glossary

Invest in Bitcoin.

Get Started

Human Support

Track Performance

Recurring Buys

Learning Center
Glossary
K
Know Your Customer (KYC)

Know Your Customer (KYC)

Know Your Customer (KYC) laws are intended to prevent financial instutions from being used for illicit money transfers by mandating that all financial accounts be identifiable to individuals or organizations.

KYC laws apply to almost all financial institutions who custody client funds, including Bitcoin brokerages and exchanges. KYC laws fall under the broader scope of Anti-Money Laundering (AML). Both KYC and AML requirements vary between jurisdictions.

Related Terms

Chain Analysis

Chain analysis uses heuristics to analyse the blockchain and trace ownership of bitcoin across transactions. Chain analysis is performed by companies who contract with governments and regulated institutions to provide insight into how individuals send and receive bitcoin.

Learn more

CoinJoin

CoinJoin transactions provide increased privacy for owners of bitcoin by breaking the heuristics used by chain analysis companies. A CoinJoin transaction combines inputs from several users and returns to each user the exact same amount. However, each output is of the same amount, making it difficult to attribute ownership to each of the identical outputs.

Learn more

Exchange

An exchange is an institution which acts as a market-maker between parties who wish to buy and those who wish to sell. Exchanges simply facilitate trades between parties for a fee.

Learn more

Brokerage

A brokerage is a financial institution which allows its customers to buy assets directly.