Do You Need KYC to Accept Crypto Payments?
Short answer: payers never verify their identity on Cloakd, ever. Individual payment-link creators only need a wallet signature. Merchant checkout involves a light business review, not a personal ID check. Here's exactly what that means and how it compares to other gateways.
Payers
Never verify identity. No account, no form, nothing collected.
Payment-link creators
Wallet signature only — proves you control the wallet, not who you are.
Checkout merchants
Light business-information review before activation — never a personal ID.
This is the question that comes up more than almost any other in crypto payments, and the honest answer has a few layers because "Cloakd" actually covers three different people: the person paying, the person who created the payment link, and — if you're running a store — the business behind the checkout. Each of them is treated differently, and being precise about that matters more than a blanket "no KYC, ever" claim would.
The full policy governing all of this lives at our AML policy — this page is the plain-language version of it.
No-KYC Crypto Payments: The Questions People Actually Ask
Do I need KYC to accept crypto payments with Cloakd?
It depends which side of Cloakd you use. Payers — the people sending money — never verify their identity, period. If you're creating individual payment links (the /create flow), all you need is a wallet signature; no ID, no business information. If you're setting up merchant checkout for a business, Cloakd asks for basic business information — legal name, country, website, estimated volume — reviewed before your checkout goes live. That's a business review, not a personal identity check, and it never requires a government ID from you as an individual. Full detail is in our AML policy.
Is USDT, USDC, or another stablecoin anonymous when sent through Cloakd?
The blockchain itself is public — anyone can see a transaction happened. What Cloakd removes is the link between your identity and your receiving address: every payment gets its own generated deposit address, so payers never see the wallet you actually control, and there's no account tying your name to your on-chain activity in the first place.
Does CoinGate, NOWPayments, or BTCPay Server require KYC?
It varies by provider and by what you're trying to do. CoinGate is EU MiCA-licensed and requires KYB verification for merchants. NOWPayments is email-signup only for crypto-to-crypto merchants, with KYC kicking in for fiat payouts or higher volume. BTCPay Server is self-hosted software with no signup or verification of any kind, since there's no company operating it. Cloakd never requires identity verification from payers, and never asks individual link creators for anything beyond a wallet signature.
What is "merchant identity verification" and does Cloakd do it?
Most payment processors — crypto or otherwise — verify the business receiving money, not the individual customers paying it (this is how Stripe and PayPal work too). Cloakd follows the same principle for merchant checkout: a light business-information review before activation, never a personal ID document, and never anything at all for individual payment-link creators or payers. See our AML policy for the exact fields collected.
Is accepting crypto payments without KYC legal?
Yes. Not requiring KYC from payers is standard across the payments industry — merchants get verified, customers don't. Where regulation does apply (sanctions screening, prohibited use cases, elevated-risk verticals), Cloakd's AML policy covers exactly what's required and from whom.
See how this compares by provider
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No account, no ID, nothing to install. Create a payment link, or set up merchant checkout for your store.