Binance has announced that it will begin investigating a Know Your Customer (KYC) leak after rumours started spreading that users’ selfies, used for account verification, had been leaked from the platform.

CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted shortly after saying “not to fall into the KYC leak FUD”,

Zhao was referring to “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt ”, a concept that describes the negative media and reports that are either misleading or downright incorrect. However, it eventually turned out that the KYC photos had indeed been stolen and that the hacker was asking Binance for money in exchange for resolving the situation.

Talks between the hacker and Binance are currently in a stalemate. The hacker had demanded a total of 300 Bitcoins in return for all of the photos, which number in the tens of thousands. All of the leaked images reportedly come from users who registered in February 2018. Binance hired a third party to manage the increased volume during that month. Binance said that it would work with the third party to investigate the matter.

Binance has said that it would not be possible to remove any of the files, but are giving away BTC and ETH in an airdrop as a way of apologizing.