It has been a week since we started to implement the KYC procedure for the ICO team members. The first reactions of the community were highly controversial, as some teams were sending us angry emails, thumping their chests and declaring themselves well-known experts those don’t need any verification or hiding behind NDA. On the other hand, many projects’ teams were ready to pass through the process and, moreover, once we announced the start of KYC on our platform, some ICOs volunteered to go through the procedure and part of them have already successfully passed it.
During this week, we have also been looking for a reliable partner for KYC, as it is highly important for us to protect the personal data of our users as well as use the newest technologies in the market. The other reason for it was the need to optimize and automate the process to the point where it takes little time for its participants. Taking into account all of these factors, we have chosen Sum&Substance as our partner.
Sum&Substance is the current market leader in the online verification and KYC/AML industry in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Asia, was founded in 2015 by an international group of specialists in machine learning, business process automation, and compliance. All applications are sent through encrypted channels to a Tier 3 data center, ensuring a very high level of protection. The company develops solutions for remote verification of documents and users, such as automatic recognition of the pictures those have been edited. Their technology helps online services (such as Mail.ru Group, Gett, The Token Fund, Cryptopay, Tokenbox, NPER) all over the world comply with legal and regulatory requirements, increase conversions, prevent fraud, and increase client trust.
From now on, the ICO teams will get invitations for at least 2 members to go through the KYC procedure, fill the forms provided by Sum&Substance and submit the documents. After that the status of the process will be visible in the ICO profile, changing according to the stage. We give the teams 72 hours to complete the procedure, and, if we receive no answer, the KYC status in their profile would change to “Failed”. If one of the teams members declines or fails to pass the procedure, it would be considered as failed for the whole team. The experts can also go through the process, but in case of failure the expert’s status will be revoked from them, or, if the person is applying to become an ICObench expert, the application would be declined. Earlier we added 5 points to the expert’s weight if the expert was a part of CryptoFriends events. From now on, these points would be granted to those who passed the KYC procedure successfully.
As KYC and Whitelist are standard practices for the ICOs in order to identify the investors, in our opinion, the same procedures must be applied to the projects’ teams. On one hand, every agreement must be two-sided and every “crypto” business should adopt the real business ethics. On the other hand, you cannot raise millions and hide your identity from people trusting your project. With implementing the KYC procedure ICObench is setting new standards for the blockchain community and the ICO market as well as for the ICO listing platforms.
We are happy to admit that, at the moment, most of ICO teams are ready to go through the KYC process and we are receiving numerous emails from the projects wishing to pass the procedure voluntarily. This step is highly important for the “crypto” community and for the security of the investors. We hope to bring more trust into the market and thus contribute to its healthy growth, cutting off the unreliable projects. You can also join us in creating the new normal, sending us an email so we can select the team members to invite to KYC.
