Just avoid this exchange, there are many more professional alternatives nowadays. Not only their kyc/aml efforts are way overboard and borderline illegal privacy crushing but their staff clearly shows undertraining and a general complete cluelessness about what they are doing and in which field they are operating.

My personal experience: I've worked as an otc exchanger for a while and stopped my activities some 4 years ago, never used my Bitstamp account since then. Suddenly out of nowhere their support contacted me asking for some impossible to get and above all totally irrelevant information from an aml point of view (as it would prove nothing anyway). I provided what I could and the issue seemed to be solved, only for them to contact me again 5 months later (account still never used meanwhile) with the same exact requests as if the previous ones didn't take place. I gave them the same answers with the information I could gather and after weeks of more time wasted for nothing (I was answering more as a matter of principle than anything at this point) the account was finally terminated. Luckyly I held no funds with them whatsoever.

More in detail, I was asked for:

- various up to date ids and bank statements: reasonable request, I complied.

- "proof" of the sources of funds I transacted with them: impossible information to gather since I was just transacting mostly p2p and I'm not some governative agency with the power to track down every individual I transacted with and compelling them to send me full documentation about their financial lives, obviously, nor I'd have the time or the will to do such a thing. Some of the funds were my personal savings I bought some btc with for personal long term investment and I didn't have such old bank statements available, also because I changed banks overtime. Also it would have proved nothing aml-wise anyway since those few personal funds in fiat I bought the crypto with back in 2013 or so could have been ill gotten with no way to tell from a bank statement. I explained them all this.

- they answered asking me to provide my bitcoin wallets WITH IBAN, ADDRESS, NAME and such clearly visible. Yes you read it well: bitcoin wallets with iban, name, address. They don't know what they are doing: my best guess is they tried to bolster their aml department picking some random ex bank employee, without educating them about the crypto field, and this is the result. I practically laughed at them, tried to clean up the intellectual mess they are in a bit and provided a few of my recently used addresses (obviously without ibans...). Provided some screens of my recent transaction on my current bank account (daily expenses for low amounts), just to give them a useless iban since they were asking for it so insistently.

As I said this whole useless, embarassing and time wasting procedure was repeated twice with a 5 month gap, and in the end the account was terminated. Now the problem is not they are trying to comply with strict regulations, I can understand that. The problem is they clearly don't know what they are doing, ask for information which not only is impossible to provide in most cases (people don't plan their financial life 10 years in advance predicting the future braindead requests of some random minor crypto business and keeping all the possible documentation accordingly, I'm sorry) but mostly doesn't even make sense (btc wallets with ibans!) or is relevant in any way for aml (bank statements documenting some prehistoric wire transfers to some likely defunct exchange for a few bucks to buy some btc valued $ 100 at the time. As if this could rule out illicit source of funds).
Aml protocols require a much more balanced (and sensible) approach or it's just useless harassment and a waste of time for both parties.

I tried to verify an account with them, provided all the required documents but they are refusing to open it citing some not better specified "business decisions". Requests for further explanations were in vain.

I cannot think of any legitimate reason for such behavior and from my past experience (Neteller) this kind of obscure decision making and lacking communication is a big red flag: usually will result in money lost on your side sooner or later (Neteller locked my account without any explanation with an € 4000 wire still going their way. Result: I never got my money back despite months of mail exchanges and it's probably not worth the costs to go the legal route).

I'd advise you look for one of the many better alternatives or be very careful with them, never entrusting them with too much money.

Sollevi questioni legittime e va bene anche l'approccio diretto e provocatorio che hai usato, secondo me. Hai un po' di confusione su molti punti ma bene o male ti hanno già risposto altri (uno su tutti che è meglio ribadire: la componente "Ponzi" non c'è in quanto non esiste promessa di guadagno alcuno. Non confondere l'aspettativa dello stesso, che innesta speculazione, con la promessa, che configurerebbe la truffa).

Una cosa che voglio aggiungere è che bitcoin è un software (open source), quindi in evoluzione e certi problemi che citi non sono di banale soluzione in un network trustless e decentralizzato. La questione delle fees e del numero di transazioni gestibili nell'unità di tempo in particolare: avere un throughput maggiore implica consumo di dati e banda maggiori, che facilmente diventano non pratici da maneggiare per un utente medio. Se diventa gestibile solo da data centers torniamo a Visa e Mastercard e quindi a quel punto davvero un'alternativa inutile.
Varie soluzioni sono allo studio a riguardo e c'è molto brainstorming (ad esempio lightning network): solo il tempo potrà dire.

Inoltre tieni ben presente che una blockchain non può esistere in modo decentralizzato senza un token nativo che faccia da incentivo economico per mantenerne il funzionamento. Diversamente dovrebbe essere mantenuta da un ente centrale ma allora di nuovo è un'alternativa inutile e anche tecnologicamente inferiore ai normalissimi vecchi database per tutti gli use cases che mi vengano in mente. Non deve essere necessariamente bitcoin il token ma bitcoin è la blockchain più testata e ampiamente usata, con i maggiori capitali dentro (e questo non è poca cosa ricordando che è un software modificabile quindi difficilmente c'è ragione di passare ad un'altra chain specialmente per chi ci ha investito: dovessero emergere innovazioni veramente necessarie e "gamechanging" possono sempre essere integrate con modifiche. C'è la questione della difficoltà a raggiungere il consenso sulle modifiche, ma è un dibattito acceso che lascerei a parte).

Sottovaluti infine l'importanza di un sistema decentralizzato: è un'ottima protezione dagli abusi/politiche monetarie fallimentari. Magari questa caratteristica non tocca ogni aspetto della vita dell'utente medio in un paese "mediamente" civile ma è un'alternativa che DEVE esistere anche solo come monito e contrappeso. Il valore "intrinseco" della POSSIBILITA' di trasmettere valore in modo globale senza passare da intermediari è enorme anche se non sempre c'è necessità di farlo. E a proposito di valore intrinseco ricorda che niente lo ha. No, neppure l'oro, è sempre solo una questione di fiducia/utilizzi.

Ci sarebbero altri appunti da fare ma mi dilungherei troppo/ripeterei cose parzialmente già dette.

Da quanto ho capito li gestisce una società terza, avranno un cap ai volumi. In effetti vanno e vengono, un po' scocciante, ma è già tanto che ci siano visto lo stato delle cose qua

They'll most likely put some stricter regulation in place, not flat out ban them, considering the approach they used for bitcoin.

Hopefully Q1 2018

Maybe worth speculating on, but statal "cryptos" make little sense otherwise, imho.

Buy and hold bitcoin for "lower" risk. Look around for promising icos if you can take higher risk (and potentially higher rewards in the short term, or losses).

Difficile qualcosa prima del 2018. Solo qualche exchange che scambia delle IOU al momento (tra l'altro il valore è buono, ma bisogna vedere quando va live).

If you are down that much, you should hold unless that money absolutely makes a big difference for you. Just consider it all lost for now. There's always a chance of something getting pumped and repaying all your losses in the future. If you liquidate that 20% you lose even that chance.

Icos are just a mean to easily access investing opportunities, recently been made avaiable by blockchain technologies. You should always check the underlying business/concept fundraising through them.

Exactly. But it's not fraud, they were involved in worse stuff.
Not localbitcoins, they contacted me directly by reputation.

Esatto, anche l'interpretazione del mio commercialista, ai tempi, era stata più o meno questa: un sistema di "crediti e debiti" con l'exchange, non un vero e proprio conto estero, in quanto non ci puoi operare come se fosse un tuo conto (pagarci cose, mandare bonifici a terzi, ecc). Credo sia l'interpretazione corretta.

They weren't users of this forum. A bunch of customers of mine involved in illicit activities,  pretending to be legit businessmen with me, of course, who sold me bitcoins over a period.
Some got busted and I got the inquiry hammer too.

I'm back online. Issue with Gameristo has been solved. My hiatus is not due to another hack: security of this account is very thight after the last (and only) episode.

I have to stop my exchanging service for the time being due to some unfortunate legal issues arised because of some of my customers (I'm not involved but getting things sorted with law enforcers takes plenty of time, expecially in Italy).

Solved, thx Cyrus for the prompt help.

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We can discuss that, pming.