The owner of one of the world’s most popular gaming websites has lashed out KYC (know your customer) requirements for accepting Bitcoin payments.
Erik Allebest, CEO of Chess.com, says he’s been left with no choice but to temporarily disable Bitcoin payments for his website’s 27 million members.
The website first started accepting Bitcoin in 2010, but Allebest now claims payments processor BitPay, won’t allow Bitcoin payments worth more than $10.
“I got about 100 “cannot receive payment” emails in my inbox,” said Allebest.
“We signed up for BitPay and then I created the links. I did NOT know that we can’t receive more than $10 at a time on this account!
“It didn’t say that anywhere I saw. Anyway, in order to accept our membership payments I have to send in my personal utility bills or mortgage documents, photos of my drivers license or passport, and a bunch of company documents.”
Allebest says he can’t provide those details due to being “out of town”.
“I will get to it, but I have to say that this is a frustrating amount of bureaucracy, and I hope these KYC issues get resolved one day.
“I’m VERY sorry that so many of you tried to pay and support us and could not. I’ll update you when we get it resolved.”
Chess.com originally used Coinbase to process Bitcoin payments but Allebest says he recently decided to move to Bitpay due to Coinbase payment links being depreciated and shrinking volumes.