So I see a new feature on Cream.finance — a link that lets you buy insurance directly from Nexus Mutual. Interesting. But when I clicked the button, I saw KYC.
Excuse me? I thought this was defi.
Tell me again why I need to KYC to get protection when the protocol obviously has the ability to connect the coverage to an anonymous wallet? If there is some technical thing I'm missing, tell me in the comments. But what I'm thinking now is just WTF.
This seems to me a muddling of how defi can most effectively move forward. Yes, Nexus took care of some people after the bZx protocol was hacked. But Parsiq suffered the same thing, and Parsiq fixed the problem on its own. And no Parsiq token holder, of which I was one, had to KYC in order to get our value back.
Then why should we have to do it for Nexus?
I fear that governments will be able to take advantage of "decentralized" companies like Nexus that aren't really decentralized. Shitralized is more like it. Even if the company does eventually technically decentralize, it still holds all of the information of its users should they KYC. The UK government, which Nexus falls under the jurisdiction of, may then take that information and do all kinds of insidious things with it.
If your brain isn't as insidious as government officials, read this article to find out what they could do with your info.
I can't see this as a good thing, especially with Nexus catching on like it has. It speaks to a deeper problem within the people using crypto — that we're not really ready for decentralization or personal sovereignty. The fact is that you don't need to KYC to protect yourself, but plenty of people are giving it up just because something calling itself insurance told you to.
By the way, as I write this, bitcoin just touched its all time high. Congrats to all of us. But there won't be much left if this attitude keeps up.