Know your customer, often shortened to KYC, is the identity verification a regulated platform must complete before you can fund an account or trade, so it can confirm who you are and meet anti money laundering law.
Last reviewed 27 July 2025 · Educational, not advice
Know your customer is the set of checks a platform runs to confirm your identity before it lets you put money in or place a trade. At its simplest it answers three questions. Are you a real person who you say you are, are you old enough and in a place where the market is allowed, and is there anything that legally bars the platform from serving you. Until those questions are answered, a compliant platform will not let you fund or trade.
The reason these checks exist is the law, not platform preference. In the United States, firms in this space sit under the Bank Secrecy Act and related anti money laundering rules. The Treasury, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network known as FinCEN, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have issued rules that require covered firms such as futures commission merchants to run a written customer identification program. As of July 2025, the standard those rules set is that the firm must form a reasonable belief that it knows the true identity of each customer. Verifying you is therefore an obligation the platform must meet to operate legally.
In practice, the process usually asks for your legal name, date of birth, residential address, and a government identifier. Many platforms also ask you to upload a photo of an identity document and a live selfie so an automated or manual review can match the two. Some checks finish in minutes, while others take longer if a document is unclear or a detail does not match a record. Requirements differ by platform and by place, so the exact steps you meet depend on where you are and which venue you use.
Verification is not only a one time gate at sign up. A platform may repeat or update checks later, for example when you change address, when you reach certain funding levels, or as part of ongoing monitoring required by its anti money laundering program. This is normal and expected on a regulated venue. Offshore or unregulated sites may ask for little or nothing, which can feel convenient but often signals that the operator is not meeting the safeguards a regulated platform must follow.
It is worth being clear about what passing KYC does and does not mean. It confirms your identity and that you are eligible to hold an account. It does not approve any trade, judge any outcome as likely, or reduce the risk that you lose money. The checks protect the integrity of the market and help keep out fraud and laundering. They say nothing about whether trading is a good idea for you.
You open an account on a regulated venue. Before you can deposit, the platform asks for your name, date of birth, address, and the last digits of a government identifier, then for a photo of your identity document and a selfie. The automated check matches them and you are verified in a few minutes. A second person, with a blurry document photo, is asked to resubmit, and verification finishes the next day once the image is clear. Both can now fund and trade. Neither has been told that trading is safe or that any contract is a good buy.
Illustrative only. Steps and timing vary by platform and place, and this is not a quote, an endorsement, or a prediction.
Passing identity checks lets you trade, but it does not make trading safe or approve any outcome. Prediction markets can lose you money, and a price can be confidently wrong. Be cautious of any site that lets you trade with no verification at all. Stake only what you can afford to lose, never to chase a loss, and never on borrowed money. In the United States you can call or text the helpline on 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org.
Know your customer, or KYC, is the identity verification a regulated platform must complete before you can fund an account or trade. It confirms who you are, your age, and your location, so the platform can meet anti money laundering law and offer the market only where it is allowed.
United States law requires firms in this space to run a customer identification program under the Bank Secrecy Act. The Treasury, FinCEN, and the CFTC have set rules that oblige covered firms to form a reasonable belief that they know each customer's true identity. Verifying you is a legal obligation, not an optional step.
Checks commonly ask for your legal name, date of birth, address, and a government identifier, and may request a photo of an identity document and a selfie. Requirements vary by platform and place, so always read the platform's own terms before you start.
No. Passing verification only confirms your identity and eligibility to open an account. It is not a judgement that trading is wise or that any outcome is likely, and it does not remove the risk of loss. We never tell you to trade or predict a result.
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