Hello, I use your partner MOONPAY to transfer Fiat into Nimiq from my UK bank account. I passed their KYC months ago and registered my account details. I successfully performed dozens of transfers successfully. Now Moonpay are asking for KYC all over again with a video facial recodnition. The KYC goal post are changing and increasing. This is not in keeping with Nimiq ethos of simplicity, clarity and decentralisation. At the moment I can’t buy anymore Nimiq unless I pass a video check. I refuse to. I should be allowed to carry on performing bank transfers via Moonpay as I have before. I would challenge Nimiq’s partnership with MOONPAY if they are turning into any old centralised exchanged bowing to excessive and invasive
KYC. Any ideas please?
Hi Anastasia!
Before we made the decision to integrate MoonPay’s and Simplex’ credit card on-ramps we had extensive discussions about this topic in our team - for the exact same reasons you mention: Integrating centralized external third-party companies into our wallet is against Nimiq’s philosophy.
The main reason for deciding in favor of those integrations was the launch of Nimiq OASIS which made it very easy for Europeans with a SEPA Instant capable bank account to buy NIM and BTC with Euro right into their wallet. For technical reasons, we couldn’t integrate more fiat currencies at the time but also wanted to offer people outside of the SEPA SCT area a comparatively easy on-ramp. As some people, especially the ones who are fairly new to crypto, are not experienced enough to use crypto exchanges, the credit card option was the only viable way.
Unfortunately, exchanging fiat to crypto and crypto to fiat is tied to certain regulations that companies like MoonPay or Simplex have to comply with. They simply do the KYC because they are forced to collect this data in order to offer their service. For the same reasons, we’ll start our own KYC procedure for higher OASIS Pro limits soon. We have to do it and there’s no way around it - unfortunately!
I also registered with MoonPay a while ago and just checked with my own account: I was able to buy 300,00 € worth of NIM without re-doing KYC. Maybe you want to check back with the MoonPay customer support to find out if there’s a mistake? They offer a little chat-window on https://support.moonpay.com/ and usually reply quite fast. I really hope that you can solve the issue and continue to use MoonPay.
But to ‘end on a high note’: We’re currently exploring how to add £ GBP with Faster Payments System to OASIS for the UK. That would make buying NIM a lot easier and decentralized for you, although, you’d also have to do KYC for monthly limits above 1000$.
Kind regards,
Max
Hi, I am new here. I bought Nim through Moonpay and lost the money, can someone direct me as Moonpay are replying with generic responses. Money was taken out of my account, not sure where to go with this! Thank you Dorz
Dear Max,
Thank you for your reply and honesty regarding the KYC and your explanation. And I’m glad to know it was widely discussed in your team. I have to say I don’t agree with the change and feel very disappointed by it. After exploring Nimiq and watching your presentations I loved the simplicity of it, your interface designs and most importantly the decentralised aspect. It felt genuine, clean & straight forward. I’m one of those new users and the experience with Nimiq was great up until now. Contrary to the other well known centralised wallets where I felt that more than anything I was being mined for my data.
Now that I know you will be introducing more KYC of your own I don’t see how you can differentiate yourself from any other centralised platform, nor how you can still uphold your philosophy. And saying ‘there is no way around it’ just feels like you have thrown the towel in and picked the same route as everyone else. For me as a new user, I feel a bit like I was lured in with an idea that is now being eroded.
To answer your paragraph on Moonpay, I did contact them on their livechat and challenge the block on my account. We have had about half a dozen exchanges but they keep saying I need pass further KYC with the video. I categorically refuse. It’s moving the goal post after I successfully passing KYC a first time and successfully used their services many times. When you start moving goal post it normally never really stops.
If moonpay does not unblock my account I will not use them ever again. I will carry on with Sepa transfers from my euro account and I will keep the sums below Euro 1000 as I don’t intend to use your OASIS if KYC is introduced on it. If you further change this too, then I will leave your platform as I would have lost all decentralised integrity to it in my eyes.
I really hope things don’t do down that route.
In any case I appreciate this forum and thank you for this exchange.
Anastasia
Integrating centralized external third party companies into our wallet is contrary to Nimiq’s philosophy.
and that is why I love Nimiq
Can I ask what stage you are up to with the
Can I ask where things are up to with the GBP to NIM on OASIS? Also, would OASIS also faciliate NIM to GBP on Faster Payments System? And what timelines are we looking at? Thanks!