Glossary
KYC
Know Your Customer: identity-verification procedures financial services use to onboard customers. Required by regulated CEXes and most fiat ramps.
KYC is the regulatory requirement that financial institutions verify the identity of their customers before providing services. For crypto, KYC matters in two places: at fiat on-ramps and off-ramps (banks, payment providers, regulated CEXes) and at any service that behaves like a financial intermediary.
On-chain protocols themselves do not run KYC — they cannot, since they have no concept of identity beyond an address. That asymmetry between regulated edges and permissionless middles is the central operational tension of crypto regulation today.