I've been signed up with stock trading companies for years who never asked for anything beyond address and ID. Why should a bunch of anonymous Slovenians get my entire tax history and Bitcoin addresses?
I'm signed up there. I'll never put another penny in there again because of bullshit like that.
Word. Kraken now won't let me access my account without doing the KYC procedure. Fortunately I only left some dust in my account the last time I used them--and I won't, ever again.
Never used Bitstamp, but I know they're one of the big players. They probably want to know about your net worth and all of that in order to make recommendations or whatever--and I'm thinking and typing here, because some stock brokerages ask the same sorts of questions. I just signed up with Robinhood, and I had to answer the same stuff. That didn't bother me, and it would bother me even less with a crypto exchange, where you could pretty much tell them whatever you feel like telling them (unless they're being regulated by the government like Kraken and Coinbase).
I doubt it's Bitstamp itself coming up with this, but more so a requirement of their banking partners. I also think that this will be replicated by other exchanges in the coming few years.
Yep, you could be right about both of those things. And I imagine everything is going to look very different come five years from now.