There is a lot of disappointment currently in Dethers community. They asked their ICO-participants to fulfill a KYC-procedure prior to being able to contribute to the ICO. A lot of people failed. I personally have experienced this twice now with Dether and WePower, two ICOs with a huge interest in their ICO. In both cases, I have been rejected. I am a German citizen and have high-quality pictures of my German ID plus a high quality mugshot that I have used in several ICOs with no problem. I have also openend an online bank account with a German and a Finnish bank with no issues whatsoever.
At least in the case of Dether, there is speculation that the team might just have been overwhelmed by the number of people doing KYCs and then just randomly rejected a lot of people. In their Telegram group they said that out of 5,309 people 1,941 failed the KYC-procedure but they could not tell whether it was a technical problem or a lack of quality in the pictures. Even if that particular ICO and KYC was a mess, there is still some need for discussion around how the crypto community can ensure that a majority of people get the chance to participate in new projects.
This is especially true if we consider reasons for being rejected during KYC apart from just bad image quality. These might include:
* wrong/risky/uninteresting nationality
* haircuts or facial hair (WePower actually stated beards under "not natural face changes" as an example of reasons for being rejected WTF??)
* confusing names (i.e. different spelling on ID document, multiple names, the order of name and lastname/family name, etc.)
I always saw ICOs as a way for people from all around the world to be able to invest in promising startups, regardless of their background. But as more and more people join the game, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the small fishes to participate. If even I as a privileged German citizen am being rejected: How will new projects and their KYC-partners ensure that everybody gets a fair chance? I don't want to see people being rejected just because they wear a beard (Sikhs, muslims) or because they live in the wrong country (sorry though for USA and China)!