Point being here is, that it's not related to the currency.
What they are doing is simple blackmail for personal data. This is especially blatant as they do not provide a way to delete accounts.
So once they have your data, they store it permanently. No way around it.
I made ONE deposit valued about 5k. After realizing I would no be able to sell it due to liquidity I wanted to withdraw to Bittrex.
That's when they froze my account without either notifying me or giving me a reason.
After completing KYC they simply stopped responding to my emails entirely.
This is not about AML, this seems to rather be a KYC scam where they lock in people they suspect of being based in a country they don't service so they can keep the funds.
In my case, it's especially absurd.
I have an official and public position within the project the funds were frozen from.
Making freezing my funds because of AML completely absurd.
1.) It was my first ever deposit. I didn't even trade anything, just tried to withdraw.
2.) The funds can be traced directly from the Team wallet where they were minted to me, and then to the exchange. No fishy business.
3.) The amount itself, as I'm based in Europe, legally would not even require KYC.
4.) But even after I did go through full KYC they are not releasing my funds.
Depositing and withdrawing funds, without making trades, is a huge AML red flag. Exchanges are basically huge mixers. If you deposit funds into an exchange and withdraw those funds there is no way to trace where the funds are going.
What makes you think that you're not required to provide KYC because you're from Europe? Have you not heard of AMLD5? Here is the entire policy available in every European language:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2018/843/ojExchanges (and other financial institutions) are forced to save personal data for 5-7 years. After that you can file a GDPR request and have it removed.
This behavior of the exchanges is identical to precrime punishments as depicted in many Orwellian nightmare scenarios. Cryptocurrency in general regardless of the coin was intended to give control of personal finances back to the person, not another method of control by the controllers, they did not even create this instrument. The irony here and the reality is that the methods these exchanges are using is absurd because accusations fly out hijacking the account and demanding you give you personal info to those who are wanting to steal at the same time from you. The thoughts that really stick out to me is this:
What do these exchanges do with the funds they effectively steal from unsuspecting customers unaware of these scams? If they are doing it for law enforcement/regulation purposes why do they not show that these funds have been transferred to the relevant authorities for investigation and subsequently released if no wrong doing is found? When did any country, judge, judicial system or population put forth a vote or decree granting them government agent powers for this? There is no trial, no judge, no jury, nothing they just take your funds. If I did that to anyone and then claimed they must prove to me where the source of funds, etc. etc.. as a non-government agent I would expect to be charged with theft.
These exchanges doing this are not government agents of any type with no authority to do this, and claiming authority under suspicion of activities is exactly what Orwell strongly warns us about. For an easy explanation of this "It is increasingly used in academic literature to describe and criticise the tendency in criminal justice systems to focus on crimes not yet committed. Pre-crime intervenes to punish, disrupt, incapacitate or restrict those deemed to embody future crime threats. The term pre-crime embodies a temporal paradox, suggesting both that a crime has not occurred and that the crime that has not occurred is a foregone conclusion." source "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-crime"
If you believe this behavior is defensible then you should not be shocked when it happens to you because it can for any reason based on this premise and the actions being taken with this premise in mind.