alt Hacker NewsIt's worth noting that this offloads the KYC/AML component to someone else down the road, but doesn't protect you from possible money laundering risk (e.g., you send USDC to a sanctioned individual who launders it into monero or something else). I'm no lawyer but I did work on Stripe Connect's compliance pieces for five years and I would NOT take the risk of (as a business) sending money to USDC addresses without actually verifying identities.
It also doesn't offer you protection against fraud (which is a huge problem that marketplaces face).
Frankly the missing piece to this is a real, actual identity verification component. If you're not checking identities against sanctions lists at the absolute minimum, you're not doing your due diligence. I wouldn't take that risk. The last thing you need is to be on the receiving end of a US Treasury inquiry.
Appreciate you raising this, especially given your Connect experience.
This is a fair concern. Zoneless does verify the identity of payout recipients through Didit, and marketplaces can require KYC before the first payout. We also have support for blocking OFAC-listed wallet addresses, and also have additional checks to flag suspicious behaviour.
I agree that KYC doesn't eliminate marketplace fraud, though. That's true with Stripe Connect too; Stripe explicitly leaves platforms responsible for monitoring and preventing fraudulent activity even though it handles KYC and provides risk tooling.
I think the area I could make much clearer in the docs is the distinction between identity verification, sanctions screening, and marketplace fraud prevention.