About KYC

Education about KYC, what it is and what it does.

What is KYC?

KYC means "know your customer". The concept of KYC was originally devised by banks as an anti-money laundering initiative, and to try to throttle the amount of money that was being used to fund criminal or terrorist activities.

It has since been adopted into other parts of life. For example, KYC is sometimes a part of certain job applications to prove you are who you say and have a legal right to work in the country you are applying for the job in. Credit card companies, loan organisations, estate agencies, and insurance brokers may also require KYC in some places nowadays. It is also used by many blockchain projects to prove who their customers are. As well as cryptocurrency exchanges, again to prove who their customers are and prevent crypto being used to fund crime and terror.

What Does KYC Involve?

KYC is a very simple process. You will need to prove your identity by showing a government-issued identification document. This might be a passport, driving licence, or national identity card, for example.

You may also need to take a live selfie to prove that the person in the identification's photograph is you. For this reason, birth certificates are unlikely to be an acceptable medium of proving your identity, since it doesn't have a (current) photograph of you on it.

KYC in The Sandbox

Everyone is welcome to play the many experiences within The Sandbox and create content using The Sandbox's software.

However, in order to claim any rewards or earnings, you will be required to pass KYC. This is to prevent people from committing fraud by creating multiple accounts in order to try to cheat in contests, for example.

KYC will not lead to you being denied access to or being banned from The Sandbox if you reside in a country that may have international sanctions imposed against them (ie, Iran, Russia). It is there to prevent the community's SAND tokens from ending up in the wallets of fraudsters and cheats.