Leading digital identity verification provider, Jumio, has teamed up with smart cryptocurrency payments platform, Byteball, to support it in optimising “Know Your Customer” (KYC) processes for users taking part in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

Byteball offers an innovative, distributed, decentralised platform that has been designed to support users in launching ICOs with enhanced protection against fraud. More and more listing companies are concerned about verifying the identity of ICO participants, as governments worldwide seek to bring these often unregulated “token sales” under the same regulations as traditional fundraising tools, to prevent money laundering and other financial crime.

Using Netverify®, Jumio’s advanced identity verification solution, Byteball will be able to offer optimum KYC checks for ICO transactions, providing ICO operators with the reassurance that the people they are doing business with are genuinely who they say they are. Netverify combines ID Verification and biometric Identity Verification to provide a quick and easy experience for users and, for ICO issuers, ensures proactive compliance with imminent regulatory guidelines.

First, participants of an ICO hosted via Byteball’s platform are asked to scan a government-issued ID document, such as a driver’s license or passport, which is verified for authenticity in real time. Secondly, Jumio’s Face Match technology asks the user to submit a live selfie, following an on-screen icon with their eyes as it moves in a random pattern. This dual-layer of security, bolstered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and human identity experts, ensures that the user’s selfie matches the photo on their ID document, and that they are physically present at the point of verification.

Philipp Pointner, VP Product, Jumio, explained: “ICOs have transformed the financial arena as an alternative means for listing companies to raise funds for development projects or to launch new businesses. However, as they are currently unregulated and, as transactions in cryptocurrencies are, by their nature, anonymous, regulatory bodies are becoming increasingly concerned that they provide an avenue for money laundering and other financial crime.

Netverify’s comprehensive identity verification is ideally suited to tackling the unique fraud challenges of ICO projects. Asking a fraudster to submit a live selfie is a major deterrent, and makes participation in ICOs instantly less attractive to that individual. By working together on accurate identity verification for ICOs in this way, Jumio and Byteball can help prevent money laundering and fraud, and support conscientious listing companies in cooperating with regulatory bodies. Together, we can help ensure that ICOs have a bright future as a legitimate alternative to traditional fundraising instruments.”

In addition to providing an innovative platform for ICOs, Byteball enables users to create and enter into smart contracts for a host of other financial transactions, such as betting or insurance, confident that the terms they have agreed upon will be met. This is because the platform allows users to set conditions which have to be met before the actual payment is made, protecting the money of the individual purchasing services from fraud.

Jumio is working with Byteball to provide identity verification for several other types of transactions in the near future, including fraud screening for credit card payments and lending.

The Jumio-verified identity will be stored securely in the user’s Byteball wallet, while a “hash” – or an encrypted shorthand form of the personal data, will be posted to Byteball’s Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) as a proof of identity verification. When a user needs to provide their personal data to access a service, including an ICO, they can pull their data out of their Byteball wallet in just a few clicks.

Tony Churyumoff, Founder, Byteball, added: “By partnering with Jumio, we bring identity to the distributed ledger, both for ICOs and other financial transactions, creating strong connections between the crypto and the real world.  For end users, we offer them a sovereign identity that is totally private, secure, and incredibly easy to use. For businesses, it is an opportunity to build applications that leverage the identity layer that was not possible before.”

The new Jumio-enabled identity verification feature will be launched on the Byteball platform on 17th January 2018.