KYC / AML

KYC / AML stands for Know Your Customer and Anti-Money-Laundering — a pair of regulatory obligations that require financial service providers to verify user identities and monitor transactions for suspicious patterns. KYC typically means collecting government ID and proof of address before allowing deposits or withdrawals; AML means ongoing transaction screening against sanctions lists and reporting unusual activity to authorities like FinCEN in the US. In crypto, centralized exchanges and custodial services must comply wherever they operate, while fully non-custodial protocols generally do not require KYC because no intermediary holds user funds. Regulated stablecoin issuers can freeze or blacklist custodial-ownership accounts that fail compliance checks. For tokenized domain transfers involving fiat settlement or custodial wallets, KYC may be required by the payment processor or exchange involved. Namefi's non-custodial model means the smart contracts themselves impose no identity checks — ownership flows directly between wallets — but on-ramps and off-ramps that convert domain sale proceeds to fiat will apply the usual AML obligations. Source: FinCEN Regulatory Guidance.