Weโre Not Here to Defend KYC - Weโre Here to Fix It
Letโs be honest: KYC sucks.
And yes - even with @idOS_network, youโll have to go through it once before we can make it easier.
KYC was written for a different world. The first rules appeared in the early 1990s - before the internet connected everyone, before stablecoins, before open finance. They were designed for local banks, paper forms, and fax machines - and theyโre still what we all use today.
The result? A system that penalizes people for where they were born instead of what they do. It blocks entire countries, makes onboarding painful, and still fails to stop crime. Some of our own team members who helped build the app arenโt allowed to fully use it. That makes me both sad and angry.
Fake accounts and stolen IDs are sold on the dark web, while legitimate users face endless friction. Even regulators struggle to process the flood of reports - Germanyโs FIU, for example, has faced major backlogs for years.
So yes, KYC is broken. And yet, our industry mostly looks the other way. We preach decentralization, but still store ID copies in centralized silos. Weโre decentralized in the streets and centralized in the sheets.
And no - zk doesnโt fix that.
Donโt get me wrong - zero-knowledge proofs are a brilliant technology. But look at the pattern: every few months a new zkKYC startup gets funded - and a few quarters later, its founders and investors discover that this isnโt how KYC actually works. They pivot into some over-marketed centralized โdata vault,โ or fail to get traction - often both.
If weโre too afraid to dive into the sewage of the existing system and get our hands dirty, weโll never fix it. zk helps once you have decentralized storage and real data-access guarantees. It doesnโt replace compliance reality - it just makes it amazing once youโve built the plumbing.
At idOS, we think itโs time to fix it - not ignore it, and not shy away from the hard parts.
We have to meet the system where it is today, and build the bridge to what it should become.
Hereโs what we can already do better:
๐ Reusability: Verify once, reuse your credential across apps - in a compliant way.
๐๏ธ Transparency: Know exactly what data is stored and who youโve shared it with.
๐ Inclusion: Support as many countries as the law allows.
๐ Safety: Avoid duplication and encrypt every record with your personal key - no data honey pots.
Weโre plumbers, not politicians. We canโt rewrite global law, but we can design better rails around it.
Hereโs what we canโt change today (yet):
๐ซ The FATF and EU โhigh-riskโ lists restrict service to users in certain countries. Thatโs not our rule - itโs the one our financial partners must follow.
๐๏ธ Regulated providers must retain KYC data for a few years by law. With idOS, they can keep secure access without downloading it, and data is automatically deleted when the retention period ends.
๐งฉ Some partners still rely on their existing centralized KYC providers for data storage. Weโre meeting clients where they are today, so our system works now - and can upgrade them later.
And hereโs whatโs possible with idOS already:
Once the initial check is done, KYC providers delete your data. It stays only with the regulated entity that needs it - not with the verification vendor. Thatโs how we remove unnecessary copies while staying compliant.
Itโs early days, and thereโs plenty of work ahead - but this is a start.
And it can only get better from here.
idOS is open-source, public-good infrastructure. You can inspect it, criticize it, or help improve it. Community members are already contributing to better privacy, storage, and UX through encryption and MPC.
So please - donโt shoot the messenger.
Weโre not defending a broken system.
Weโre the ones going into the drainage to clean it up.
KYC still sucks - join us in making it better.