Reusable KYC and Wallet as a Service: Verify Once, Go Everywhere

The crypto industry spends over $60 billion per year forcing users to re-verify their identity for every app. On-chain credentials solve this — but only if your Wallet as a Service provider keeps the same address across applications.

Every crypto app asks you to upload your passport. Again. A user who trades on Coinbase, swaps on Uniswap via MoonPay, and lends on Aave has submitted the same government ID to three separate databases. An active crypto user completes KYC four to seven times across their portfolio of services. Power users hit double digits.

Each verification costs the platform $3 to $50 for automated checks. Each copy of your passport sitting in another database is another target for attackers. And 70% of potential crypto users never finish onboarding because the friction is too high.

The total bill for the industry: over $60 billion per year in global AML compliance costs, with 67% of banks reporting lost clients due to slow KYC processes. The Coinbase breach of May 2025 showed what happens when all that stored PII falls into the wrong hands: $180 to $400 million in damages from a single insider attack.

There is a better model. Verify once, receive an onchain credential, and present it everywhere. But this model has a prerequisite that most articles about onchain KYC ignore: your wallet must be portable. If every app gives you a different wallet address, your credential is stranded on the first one. This is where Wallet as a Service (WaaS) architecture becomes critical, the right WaaS provider makes reusable KYC work; the wrong one silently breaks it.

Key Takeaways

• KYC repetition costs the crypto industry over $60 billion per year in compliance spending, with per-user verification costs ranging from $3 to $50 for automated checks and up to $3,500 for manual reviews.
• 70% of potential crypto users abandon onboarding due to identity verification friction, and 67% of banks globally report losing clients to slow KYC processes.
• Credential portability depends on wallet portability. If your wallet provider creates a new address for every app (as other providers do by default), onchain credentials cannot follow the user. Para binds wallets to user identities, keeping the same address across all integrated apps.

What does repeated KYC actually cost?

The per-verification expense is only part of the equation. The real cost is measured across three dimensions: direct spend, lost users, and breach liability.

Direct costs

For a typical crypto exchange running automated checks, the all-in cost per user is $3 to $15. Enhanced due diligence for higher-risk categories pushes that to $15 to $50 per user.

Lost users

This is where the real damage happens. 70% of potential crypto users abandon onboarding before their first deposit.

Every additional KYC cycle compounds the problem. Users rushing through their fifth verification take worse selfies, leading to higher rejection rates. Failed verifications generate support tickets costing $5 to $15 each.

Every app that runs its own KYC stores a copy of the user's passport, selfie, and personal details. Five platforms means five copies of the same government ID in five separate databases. The probability math is straightforward: if each database has a 2% annual breach probability, the chance of at least one breach across five platforms over three years is 26%. At 5% probability per platform, that number jumps to 54%.

Why does reusable KYC require portable wallets?

Onchain credentials are bound to wallet addresses. This creates a hard dependency: if the user's address changes, the credential is stranded.

The three wallet models

Para: Same address everywhere. Para associates wallets with user identities (email addresses), not individual applications. When a user creates a wallet in one Para-integrated app, that same wallet (same address, same key material, same on-chain history) is available in every other Para-integrated app. No re-onboarding. No manual key export. A credential issued to a Para wallet address is automatically portable across every integrated application.

Privy/Dynamic/Turnkey: New wallet per app by default. Each Privy-integrated app generates a separate embedded wallet for each user. A user ends up with multiple addresses across different apps. A credential issued on App A is invisible to App B because App B sees a completely different address. Privy introduced cross-app wallets as an opt-in feature, but it requires bilateral integration between specific app pairs, not universal portability.

Coinbase Smart Wallet: Domain-bound access. Coinbase Smart Wallet uses ERC-4337 smart contract wallets secured by passkeys. The on-chain address is technically portable (it is a smart contract). But the passkey that controls it is bound to keys.coinbase.com, creating a dependency on Coinbase's infrastructure for access across applications.

How do portable and locked wallets compare for credential portability?

The credential portability gap is measurable. With Para, a KYC check at App B takes approximately 200 milliseconds (one blockchain read). With Privy's default configuration, the same user must re-verify at App B, taking 2 to 15 minutes for automated checks and 24 to 72 hours for manual review.

When should you implement reusable KYC?

Not every application needs on-chain credential infrastructure. This decision framework helps determine when the investment pays off.

Strong fit

• Regulated DeFi protocols gating access to lending, trading, or structured products
• Multi-app ecosystems where users move between related services (exchange, lending, staking)
• Fiat on/off-ramp providers where KYC is legally required but re-verification destroys conversion
• Institutional platforms where KYC costs $1,500 to $25,000 per client and onboarding takes 30 to 90 days

Para binds wallets to user identities, not individual applications. Learn more about wallet portability at docs.getpara.com.