About a week ago, I was hit with an email from Bittrex and a support ticket raised on my behalf asking to obtain information about my source of funds. This isn't actually the first time this has happened to me. The first being through Wirex and their shoddy Proof of Wealth Questionnaire.
With Wirex, it was a complete nightmare. You're given a list of potential sources of wealth and the documents required to serve as evidence. None of the sources of wealth include bitcoin mining, much less earning rewards from Steemit blogging. In-fact, none of the options support crypto only companies which never exchange their crypto fiat.
For a crypto company, they certainly aren't very supportive of crypto business endeavours.
There is a never ending argument about why governments require crypto businesses to conduct thorough KYC and AML, but this is beyond that. It is asking for complete details of your trading history, source of funds for trading and investing, and a clear side step from crypto earned on platforms like steemit. I thought it strange considering that I was a verified customer of both platforms, providing my full name, address, and government issued documents to support them.
Bittrex have put a lock on my account until they accept or deny my truthful explanation of source of funds. It is a great shame because I have been with Bittrex for more than 5 years, traded far larger volumes than I do today, and I have never had any problems what so ever. Suddenly, I'm asked to send in detailed documents that not even my traditional bank account requires.
Governments have been putting pressure on crypto platforms to prevent money laundering but in my case, if I am locked out of my account, I will likely be neither the first or last to have my financial liberty challenged by an exchange that previously supported the "freedom, liberty and property" ethos.
Beware my friends.