After its meteoric rise earlier this year, cryptocurrency values remain volatile, rising and falling by the day. However, the lack of regulations surrounding this growing market leave its investors ripe for exploitation. As fraudsters and threat actors continue to find new ways to steal accounts and assets, cryptocurrency exchanges and affiliated firms can’t keep up with the number of users getting locked out of their accounts.
Cryptocurrency firms, users, and businesses looking to enter this emerging financial sector desperately need a solution that can ease the burden for overworked customer support teams, assure users that their accounts and cryptocurrencies are safe, and empower firms to combat today’s fraudsters and threat actors. At Nametag, we can help. Our Sign in with ID solution allows users to tie their accounts to their government-issued IDs, giving them a level of security that is unique to them. We believe that by solving these fraud issues for individuals, we’re dedicated to offering a scalable solution for firms in the cryptocurrency space.
Threats in Today’s Cryptocurrency Landscape
Because cryptocurrencies don’t universally require “Know Your Customer” (KYC) practices, such as customer identification, customer due diligence, or enhanced due diligence, consumers are more vulnerable to fraud than people operating within banks or other established financial structures. While some established cryptocurrency exchanges have adopted KYC procedures, a majority of peer-to-peer crypto exchanges don’t require any identity verification.
In fact, a 2021 report found that 44% of fraud incidents in the cryptocurrency sector involved some form of identity fraud. In these instances, cyber criminals either create a fake identity or steal someone else’s identity to launder money, scam legitimate users, or gain access to cryptocurrency wallets by force. Unfortunately, this widespread fraud and the lack of recourse doesn’t just impact the victims. It also limits cryptocurrency adoption for exchanges and puts a lot of pressure on their user support teams.
Preventing Cryptocurrency Fraud with Nametag
Existing solutions, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), are not equipped to stand up to threat actors constantly searching for a way to circumvent their protection. In the aftermath of a major breach where hackers exploited an MFA vulnerability to infiltrate more than 6,000 accounts, empty their wallets, and get away with an undisclosed amount of customer data, the crypto exchange Coinbase has faced an overwhelming amount of criticism for its lack of customer support. In fact, one former user has filed a class action lawsuit accusing the platform of failing to protect its users in the event of a breach.
While many exchanges and merchants are beginning to turn to biometrics and adopting KYC measures to authenticate and protect their user base, companies can struggle to properly implement biometric verification solutions, or turn to solutions that rely on legacy technology to verify users.
The Nametag team designed a frictionless solution that uses proven technology and eases the burden for customer support teams. Our portal works out-of-the-box and uses our Multi-Factor Identity technology, which pairs selfie verification and authentication using your government-issued ID to make it easier for legitimate users to sign in while making sure cryptocurrency user support reps don’t have to be fraud detectives to resolve a ticket.
Keep An Eye Out For Web3
As the cryptocurrency sector continues to expand, Nametag is dedicated towards providing a secure framework that organizations and users alike need in order to feel that their investments and assets will be here tomorrow.
Our “Sign in with ID” solution is the next generation of account access and recovery, finally doing away with credentials and allowing users to utilize their actual identity to make their Web3 experiences safer, more secure and authentic.
We believe in creating an efficient, yet secure experience at every level of a cryptocurrency transaction, starting at the user level, scaling to help organizations looking at investments in cryptocurrency, and making sure that the exchanges themselves have the security and time they need to keep the market running.
If you’d like to learn more about how Nametag can help your organization, you can contact us here.