I recently tried to sign up to an exchange while chasing an airdrop. The exchange claims to be fully decentralised but requires know your customer credentials before allowing trades after signing up.
I guess the term decentralised carries different meanings depending on context, because the idea seems to be connected to how trading works on the platform, which I'm not going to get into.
The thing that caught my attention was the manner in which the exchange platform handled my KYC process. When they sent me an email telling me to resubmit my data, I noticed other exchanges I had registered with started being difficult to use around the same time.
Photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash
The questions running around in my head are : if the data given to such entities is private and isn't shared, why would a situation like this affect other platforms? is my identity being misused? have I made an error in judgement trying to sign up with this particular platform?
If you know of anything about what happens in the back-end of such platforms, feel free to comment below.