Topic: [RESOLVED] kucoin claiming kyc now mandatory demanding ID documents to withdraw - page 2. (Read 853 times)

Perhaps they are contacting your local authorities to report their 'suspicions' and holding your funds until they hear back from them. If the authorities are satisfied with the information you provided KuCoin can release your funds:


Their privacy policy is also very clear on why they can/will collect personal data:


Not sure where I read it but I think that, according to AMLD5, exchanges are no longer allowed to inform users in case of an investigation/inquiry.

It is a valid excuse to hold the funds (according to AML/CFT policies). Chain analysis can't link deposits and withdrawals on exchanges without contacting the exchanges and having them provide the information. This is why similar actions (depositing and withdrawing without making trades) are flagged and will result in having to provide KYC information, as it is a money laundering indication. Exchanges have no other option than to follow the AML/CFT regimes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving my personal opinion here but this is how these policies work. Regulations will only get worse from here. I wouldn't be surprised if they already reported OP's transaction(s) to local authorities (if they know what country he's from).

You could be right about their inability to communicate properly, but you kind of started off on the wrong foot with them. You were immediately accusatory and didn't ask for help, only pointed to this accusation.

I know it feels like they have you bent over a barrel but your only option currently is to submit the KYC documents. If I ran an exchange, I wouldn't hold funds over surprise KYC issues, I would let the user withdraw them back to their original address (I know with XMR that's a bit more difficult to prove). But, I'm not an exchange, so you kind of have to do what they say.

If you get to the stage of kaefergeneral where they took your KYC and your coins, then let me know here and I will help you to open a flag against them. That will put up a warning message that is visible to everyone who can see their thread. If company/project cares enough about their reputation on the forum, they will find your accusations worth responding to, potentially helping you to resolve the issue.

As of right now, however, there is more evidence in kaefergeneral's case to warrant a flag or a red tag as they actually underwent the KYC and still haven't received their coins. I will tag the KuCoin Exchange account and point them to this thread to see if they will respond. Gonna give them a couple days to respond to my comment in their thread before tagging them.

I did what was suggested by "nutlidah" as shown here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.55090441 you can see they ignored it completely and continued on with another advertisement, no PM either, not that I am surprised because they blocked me from livechat I believe due to their inability to communicate properly.

I believe that the 11th email I recently got in which they claimed certain things would happen is a direct result of posting here because 10 emails prior they only repeated the claims of the inconsistent policies, again if possible attempt to produce some documentation because in the long run exposing these types of behaviors is essential to the community.

Considering that we are probably the first to encounter this it is possible there are others because all the policies regarding this behavior have been modified in Aug. 2020 and now there are people having issues, I do not think this a coincidence.

I cannot agree that they know what they are doing exactly, the behavior is extremely amateurish due to the nature of execution.  The policies being inconsistent is another highly amateur move as it shows lack of intellectual due diligence.

In banks and other institutions you are required to give ID documents before a pence drops in to any account, as I pointed out in their own policies they stated this as well however they contradict this by allowing deposits and in addition allowing the trading that occurred, therefore violating their own written policies.  Would this not qualify as suspicious so they now need to give me their ID documents?  So this is obviously not a professional move because it is either one way or the other, not in the middle unless you are running a scam.  Besides there is not a "huge amount of money" the fact still remains that it was only 9 deposits and 4 withdrawals.  Even looking at that amount you can immediately tell that I was focused on trading not withdrawing.  Considering you and others keep saying "large amounts" I do not know if you are ignoring the screenshots, work for them and are trying to justify their behavior or are incapable of viewing the screenshots and understanding what you see.

Compliance of this nature for convenience reminds me succinctly of this quote
Considering the core principles of all cryptocurrencies I would be doing myself a disservice as well as the community, I am not about to go against core principles of these financial instruments creator(s) that is disrespectful, disingenuous and patently wrong.

That's not right at all... You should be allowed to withdraw your funds to the address you sent them from, at the very minimum. What I recommend is to post a comment describing your situation in their main thread and see if the KuCoin Exchange account replies to you. They may be able to help you out quite a bit as they were just online today. If that doesn't work, reply back here and I will help you to open a formal scam accusation against them, which might stimulate them into action.


Not a valid excuse to hold somebody's funds without any sort of way to get them back. Exchanges are only decent mixers if they are completely anonymous, like a DEX, and even then there's ways to see who got what, where its been, and where its going. Exchanges that ask for KYC are the exact opposite of mixers.

And of course there's a way to trace where the funds are going, its called blockchain analytics.

This behavior of the exchanges is identical to precrime punishments as depicted in many Orwellian nightmare scenarios.  Cryptocurrency in general regardless of the coin was intended to give control of personal finances back to the person, not another method of control by the controllers, they did not even create this instrument.  The irony here and the reality is that the methods these exchanges are using is absurd because accusations fly out hijacking the account and demanding you give you personal info to those who are wanting to steal at the same time from you.  The thoughts that really stick out to me is this:

What do these exchanges do with the funds they effectively steal from unsuspecting customers unaware of these scams?  If they are doing it for law enforcement/regulation purposes why do they not show that these funds have been transferred to the relevant authorities for investigation and subsequently released if no wrong doing is found?  When did any country, judge, judicial system or population put forth a vote or decree granting them government agent powers for this?  There is no trial, no judge, no jury, nothing they just take your funds.  If I did that to anyone and then claimed they must prove to me where the source of funds, etc. etc.. as a non-government agent I would expect to be charged with theft.

These exchanges doing this are not government agents of any type with no authority to do this, and claiming authority under suspicion of activities is exactly what Orwell strongly warns us about.  For an easy explanation of this "It is increasingly used in academic literature to describe and criticise the tendency in criminal justice systems to focus on crimes not yet committed. Pre-crime intervenes to punish, disrupt, incapacitate or restrict those deemed to embody future crime threats. The term pre-crime embodies a temporal paradox, suggesting both that a crime has not occurred and that the crime that has not occurred is a foregone conclusion."  source "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-crime"

If you believe this behavior is defensible then you should not be shocked when it happens to you because it can for any reason based on this premise and the actions being taken with this premise in mind.

Depositing and withdrawing funds, without making trades, is a huge AML red flag. Exchanges are basically huge mixers. If you deposit funds into an exchange and withdraw those funds there is no way to trace where the funds are going.

What makes you think that you're not required to provide KYC because you're from Europe? Have you not heard of AMLD5? Here is the entire policy available in every European language: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2018/843/oj

Exchanges (and other financial institutions) are forced to save personal data for 5-7 years. After that you can file a GDPR request and have it removed.

I do get that in withdrawing funds on KuCoin, it doesnt really need KYC verification but the thing is, as you reached for the support yourself you may as well get the things done since they know what they are doing exactly. If its KYC documents they needed then provide it or else it may look that it is involve in some fraudulent activities. If they detected that then that is the valid and only reason why they want you to submit KYC. Especially if it involves a huge amount of money having problems. Even in banks and other institutions, they are looking for verifications just like this one.

It is noticeable you are invalidating the necessity of specifics in contract law, and your interpretation of the policy is implying withdrawals will be suspended.  This is a mistake you cannot assume anything in contract law, doing so is detrimental as it is required that specifics are outlined otherwise as you are doing any interpretation outside of what was written can be applied simply by one's emotions.

If you wrote this policy correct it, if not do not take personally what others have done it is self-defeating.

Thank you for your insights, you have made me more diligent in my thoughts on this and the motivations for making ambiguous contracts in addition to why I will avoid them in the future.

Your 'factual issues' are non-existent. There were no policy changes regarding KYC since you joined. Here is a copy of their policy from 11/2019, which has exactly the same text regarding KYC: https://web.archive.org/web/20191115081956if_/https://www.kucoin.com/news/en-terms-of-use

You're trying to give your own interpretation to their policy while it's perfectly clear. There is nothing confusing about it and you have agreed to their terms when you created your account. The staff technically wasn't wrong about KYC being non-mandatory. As they said in your first conversation, something triggered their risk assessment system, resulting in them requiring KYC information. The other staff members didn't know this as first, but once they checked why your withdraw was halted they informed you about the reason and what information was required.

A civil lawsuit will be an absolute waste of your time and money and it will very likely be striked out before even making it to court.

It is very much a scam accusation because there are many holes not only in the multiple policies I posted links to from kucoin but, in addition their representatives not being consistent, posting this one policy simply adds to the ambiguity and inconsistency I will point out why.

The factual issues:

1) Terms were changed on 8/13/20 as per the link itself I joined before this date as can be attested by the evidence, Aug. 3rd 2020.  Interestingly enough any other organization I have been a member of immediately sends out changes to their membership base if they signed up before the changes, this did not happen, no one here has mentioned the simple fact that I joined on Aug. 3rd 2020, the terms changed and as a matter of fact it appears no one has been notified.  If you have a bank account as to which this is easily compared simply recall how many times they have sent you those annoying updated T&C, this is why.

2) They have specific terminology on the kyc process and the outcomes, specifically there are 3 reference points as links I have presented in the original post that they sent me themselves in the first response to my email support request, in contract law this is what is called ambiguity in which you follow the most referenced points in case of contradictions such as these.  Again in these specific references just like the link you sent with the excerpt in which I extracted the definition of "Services" and included the excerpt from the same link, there is not even the word or mention of withdraw.

3) They define the "Services" which clearly does not include withdrawals or deposits but, here it is right from the link you sent:

4) So going by their own rules on restrictions of "Services" as you outlined above and incorporating their definition of "Services" there is no exclusion or explicit outline of withdrawal restriction, it is very clear that trading of any kind or type will be restricted which is what they did and I discovered being restricted upon attempting to trade, this is the only thing consistent about this whole event and actually in line with their own policies.  Restricting withdrawals is not explicitly, nor clearly outlined or restricted in any policy that is written and available for review.  

If you have a chance to review contract law please do because you will learn that ambiguity is a common issue that causes problems with many companies, this is why for example a civil lawsuit can be successful.

In this example kucoin has either intentionally or unintentionally made it confusing thus leaving you the customer to learn about contract law or simply hire a lawyer to review the contract.  In either presentation of these anyone would be easily successful in proving lack of consistency in their actions.  It cannot be expected of the customer to know the intentions without clear, concise and explicit terms, this is not that.  Conclusively this leaves one to generate their own thoughts on these actions.

None I am aware of and far as can be told neither are others aware of.

You obviously did not even look or read anything that was presented.  9 deposits and 4 withdrawals is not mathematically equivalent or scaled to "thousands".  Where did you get "thousands of deposits and withdrawals" from?

I do not have an actual need for large numbers or transactions, as you can see in one month for example I only had 9 deposits and 4 withdrawals, those "extra" benefits are of no use to someone at my scale.

I would agree except that the very same support people I spoke with on chat are exactly the same people emailing me.  In fact "winnie" whom I spoke with 1st and 2nd is also the last person to email me which I referenced in my 2nd update in the original post.  I do not think they should have forced you at all and considering that you are stating what I am experiencing that does not bode well for the rest of the community under the same impression as I about kyc being optional with them in particular.  Nor does it set well when reading their policies that continuously claim that it is optional or in their own words "not mandatory".  Or if you look at the reddit link or the chat logs their own people say this repeatedly.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/warning-kucoins-hong-kong-office-is-empty-4869493  Empty office and pics

Within that same thread they also reply not convincingly though.

This is not a scam accussation. Kucoin's policy is pretty clear about KYC, which you have agreed to when registering an account:


This doesn't mean that KYC is mandatory but they can require you to verify your identity in certain cases, so technically their support wasn't wrong when saying that KYC isn't mandatory. Trying to sell over $11,000 worth of a privacy coin is a valid reason for them to require identity verification. Kucoin has no choice but to follow these AML/CFT policies in order to remain compliant.

Did they make an announcement ahead of KYC's official launch or an immediate proceeding?

Based on the given proofs you have, it seems like your account is "too active" with thousands upon thousands of deposits and withdrawal which does not correlate to the age of your account (Aug 3, 2020) and having no KYC. In my point of view, this might be a counter measure of the exchange for money laundering since its rampant on the crypto industry.