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ZuPago

Latest release: 1.6.9 ( 25th October 2022 ) 🔍 Last analysed 2nd August 2021 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys
4.6 ★★★★★
221 ratings
10 thousand
30th April 2021

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Do your own research!

Try out searching for "lost bitcoins", "stole my money" or "scammers" together with the wallet's name, even if you think the wallet is generally trustworthy. For all the bigger wallets you will find accusations. Make sure you understand why they were made and if you are comfortable with the provider's reaction.

If you find something we should include, you can create an issue or edit this analysis yourself and create a merge request for your changes.

The Analysis 

App Description

Here are some of the features this app advertises:

If you have chosen to use ZuPago Wallet, the system will enable you to do the following.

  • Create a suite that holds a set of accounts
  • Operate E-currencies & Crypto-Currencies in full
  • Make a regular online payment
  • Receive and send e-currencies
  • Receive & send Crypto-Currencies

On security:

With our collection of well-trained and informed experts, we’ve built some of the world’s most sophisticated Crypto-Currency security systems to ensure an updated database and secure transactions across all users of ZuPago Wallet. You can always restore access to your account if you lose your phone and forget your private keys.

They also mention the use of cold storage.

to ensure the best possible safety for their customers, the ZuPago wallet team keeps their funds in the offline cold storage with bank-grade security.

The Site

In Terms of Service, Termination of Account:

ZuPago reserves the right to restrict, suspend or terminate your ZuPago Account at our discretion if we suspect that you have failed to comply with these Terms, pose an unacceptable fraud risk to us, or if you provide any false, incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information. We will not be liable to you for any losses that you incur in connection with our closure or suspension of your account.

The App

Once the user registers an account, the app will allow you to create an account. The wallet offers multiple currencies, including BTC, Bitcoin-Cash, Litecoin, or Dogecoin. Before the user can withdraw, the app requires you to “complete your profile” via filling in a form with personal information.

There appears to be no way to access a mnemonic.

Verdict

The app is custodial and not verifiable.

(dg)

Verdict Explained

As the provider of this product holds the keys, verifiability of the product is not relevant to the security of the funds!

As part of our Methodology, we ask:

Custodial!

Is the product self-custodial?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Custodial: The provider holds the keys".

A custodial service is a service where the funds are held by a third party like the provider. The custodial service can at any point steal all the funds of all the users at their discretion. Our investigations stop there.

Some services might claim their setup is super secure, that they don’t actually have access to the funds, or that the access is shared between multiple parties. For our evaluation of it being a wallet, these details are irrelevant. They might be a trustworthy Bitcoin bank and they might be a better fit for certain users than being your own bank but our investigation still stops there as we are only interested in wallets.

Products that claim to be non-custodial but feature custodial accounts without very clearly marking those as custodial are also considered “custodial” as a whole to avoid misguiding users that follow our assessment.

This verdict means that the provider might or might not publish source code and maybe it is even possible to reproduce the build from the source code but as it is custodial, the provider already has control over the funds, so it is not a wallet where you would be in exclusive control of your funds.

We have to acknowledge that a huge majority of Bitcoiners are currently using custodial Bitcoin banks. If you do, please:

  • Do your own research if the provider is trust-worthy!
  • Check if you know at least enough about them so you can sue them when you have to!
  • Check if the provider is under a jurisdiction that will allow them to release your funds when you need them?
  • Check if the provider is taking security measures proportional to the amount of funds secured? If they have a million users and don’t use cold storage, that hot wallet is a million times more valuable for hackers to attack. A million times more effort will be taken by hackers to infiltrate their security systems.
The product cannot be independently verified. If the provider puts your funds at risk on purpose or by accident, you will probably not know about the issue before people start losing money. If the provider is more criminally inclined he might have collected all the backups of all the wallets, ready to be emptied at the press of a button. The product might have a formidable track record but out of distress or change in management turns out to be evil from some point on, with nobody outside ever knowing before it is too late.