The markets are all over the place today, with the Fed announcement and a bunch of big companies releasing results this evening, so I’m carefully ignoring everything there.
I’ve put in my dual investment low buys (on ETH) and still have my “up” part if things pump.
Situation covered, walk away. 🤪
Instead, I thought I’d tell you about a very odd situation I had with MEXC a while back.
MEXC with or without KYC?
As a rule, I don’t like KYC and AML.
I like my privacy. It’s none of anyone’s business what I do with my money until it comes to paying taxes.
And both those checks are stupid bureaucracy that doesn’t do anything significant (other than annoy customers).
For example, here’s the AML costs for US and Canadian companies a couple of years ago… and the fact that it stops 0.2% of the crime it targets:
KYC is slightly different, as it primarily makes sure we pay tax. But still, it’s an annoyance and an unnecessary invasion of privacy.
At MEXC, doing KYC does give some actual benefits:
- Higher deposit and withdrawal limits (irrelevant unless you’re a whale)
- Access to “hold and earn” interest on crypto
- Higher rates of interest on certain coins/tokens
Those last two are the benefits I’m getting on my KYC’ed account – especially the huge 20% interest on SOL.
But I also have a couple of spare accounts which haven’t done KYC.
And that, apparently, can cause a bizarre situation.
No-KYC KYC
A while ago, I accidentally sent funds to the wrong MEXC account.
Not a huge amount – we’re talking, like, $20 or something.
So I figured I’d do an internal transfer to my actual account, since those “withdrawals” are free.
Oh, dear.
Next thing I know, I’m getting emails from MEXC Support about “suspicious activity” on my spare account.
The transfer is suspended.
So I contacted them and asked what they needed.
They asked for KYC.
I said “no”.
They replied, sending me to a page where I filled in details of the transfer and so on, then clicked next…
…and got a KYC request.
I told them “no” again. Their account security page says I don’t have to do it to use basic functions, I was well within the deposit/withdrawal limits (having hardly used the account), and I value my privacy, which is why I’m at MEXC in the first place.
And they sent me back to the same page.
So I asked them what this was about.
And their response was that it’s an internal identity check that isn’t KYC but has the same requirements as KYC.
That’s right: they wanted all my identity info in return for a promise that they wouldn’t use it for KYC.
Honest, guv. No, really.
I said “no”, of course.
Eventually, my deposit went through – I’m guessing they realised it wasn’t worth all the hassle for about $20.
But I thought you all might like to know that this thing exists, and so to be careful of internal transfers at MEXC if you multi-account.
