Can I get web hosting without ID verification?

What does KYC mean for a web host?

KYC, or “know your customer”, is a check of who a customer is, usually with an ID document, before a company serves them.

The duty comes from financial regulation. In the United States, FinCEN’s customer due diligence rule covers banks, mutual funds, brokers or dealers in securities and futures commission merchants. They must identify and verify their customers. The European Commission describes a similar duty for “obliged entities” under EU anti-money-laundering law.

The FinCEN rule does not name web hosts. So a host that asks for ID follows its own policy, its fraud screening or a payment partner. The reasons found in the survey below are fraud screening, payment processors and domain registration rules.

Why can a crypto payment processor trigger KYC?

Paying in crypto does not remove every check. Some hosts route crypto payments through a third-party processor, and that processor has its own rules.

• OrangeWebsite says BitPay and CoinPayments reserve the right to request KYC.
• Namecheap takes crypto as an account top-up through BitPay. Its help page says BitPay requests ID for payments of $3,000 or more and for refunds, and may ask for a BitPay login, for example when the device has used a VPN.
• Hostwinds takes only stablecoins through Stripe, which adds its own checks at checkout.
• Hawk Host pays through BitPay and Transfi and says every account goes through the same verification.

So ask who receives your coins: the processor’s rules apply as well as the host’s. On Velumhold’s payment page you pick a coin and a network, then send to the address shown. The team checks the transaction on the blockchain. No step asks for ID.

We screen addresses, not people. Each incoming payment is checked against public sanctions lists of blockchain addresses, and a payment from a listed address is never credited.

What does Velumhold still enforce?

No ID does not mean no rules. Four things still apply.

• Age. Nobody under 18 can hold an account.
• Prohibited use. Forbidden: spam or bulk email, phishing, malware or botnet command, DDoS or other attacks, scanning or brute-forcing other people’s systems, carding or fraud, child sexual abuse material, cryptocurrency mining, and any service to sanctioned people or companies.
• Countries. We cannot serve residents or companies of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia, Belarus, China, Yemen or Western Sahara, or anyone in the occupied regions of Ukraine.
• Payment screening. Each incoming payment is checked against public sanctions lists of blockchain addresses, and a payment from a listed address is never credited.

The full rules are in the acceptable use policy and the terms.

Does no-KYC hosting cover my domain name too?

No. Hosting and domains are two purchases. Domains are not sold here: point a domain you own to the account with two nameservers or an A record. Your registrar sets its own rules.

ICANN’s guide for registrants says a domain owner must provide accurate information for directories such as WHOIS and update it when it changes. Abelohost’s privacy policy says it may ask for ID documents when you register a domain.

Whether your contact data shows in public records is another matter. ICANN’s Registration Data Policy requires registrars to redact personal data where the law requires it. What private web hosting hides covers the rest.