Term
KYC (Know Your Customer)
KYC (Know Your Customer) is the regulated process by which a financial service verifies the identity of its customers — usually by collecting government-issued ID, proof of address, and other personal information — before allowing them to use the service.
KYC (Know Your Customer) is a regulatory requirement in most jurisdictions that financial institutions verify the identity of their customers. In crypto, KYC is standard on centralized exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, etc.) and on any service that operates as a licensed money transmitter, virtual asset service provider, or custodian. Typical KYC collects a photo of a government-issued ID, a selfie, sometimes a proof of address, and often source-of-funds documentation for larger accounts.
The regulatory basis is anti-money-laundering (AML) law: services that hold or move customer funds are required to identify their customers, monitor for suspicious activity, and file reports (SARs, CTRs) with financial regulators when triggered. Non-compliance carries meaningful fines and license risk.
Non-custodial services occupy a different regulatory space. Because they do not take custody of funds and do not offer accounts to users, most jurisdictions currently do not require them to run KYC on end users. SwapZilla is non-custodial by design and does not run identity verification on the payer or recipient — merchants get an API key and configure a settlement address, and end users interact wallet-to-wallet. This is not legal advice; specific requirements vary by jurisdiction and business model.
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