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

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