BitMEX has announced the completion of its consumer verification program, turning into one of many largest crypto buying and selling platforms with a totally licensed buyer base.

As a part of the method to confirm its complete use base, BitMEX says open positions held by unverified accounts have been closed.

Again in Aug. 2020, the platform revealed plans to undertake a complete consumer id verification train. The transfer got here amid rising regulatory scrutiny over the platform’s notoriously lax Know Your Buyer, or KYC, insurance policies. 

As beforehand reported by Cointelegraph, the USA Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee charged BitMEX for illegally working a derivatives buying and selling desk. The New York District Lawyer additionally introduced up legal costs in opposition to a number of the firm’s principal actors together with former CEO Arthur Hayes.

In response, BitMEX introduced plans to revamp its Anti-Cash Laundering and commerce surveillance protocols in November 2020. In response to Thursday’s announcement, consumer verification has been obligatory for deposit, buying and selling and withdrawal capabilities since early December 2020.

As a part of the announcement, BitMEX additionally famous that $100 billion has been traded on the platform since attaining full consumer verification standing.

BitMEX CEO Alexander Höptner mentioned that the transfer was a serious step in turning into a high-performance platform:

“It locations us in an advantageous place to capitalise on the surge of customers – each retail and institutional – who’re looking for a platform on which to commerce crypto derivatives confidently with out sacrificing safety, liquidity, or efficiency. It marks a brilliant begin for BitMEX in 2021.”

Höptner, the previous CEO of German inventory change Borse Stuttgart GmbH changed Hayes as BitMEX CEO again in Dec. 2020.

BitMEX transitioning to full consumer KYC standing affords a glimpse of presidency regulators’ rising degree of scrutiny for crypto exchanges. Certainly, gone are the times of the cryptocurrency “Wild West” the place platforms operated with little to no oversight.

With regulators demanding stricter compliance measures, consideration seems to be shifting to decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, which noticed a 1,000% spike in buying and selling volumes again in Q3 2020. 

A few of these decentralized platforms at the moment are providing margin buying and selling with the added benefit of zero KYC steps to make sure anonymity. Noncustodial crypto change ShapeShift has even transitioned to turning into a DEX onramp, ditching KYC for its customers within the course of.