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Finzo Markets

Latest release: 1.3 ( 25th January 2021 ) 🔍 Last analysed 26th November 2021 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys Not functioning anymore
4.2 ★★★★★
76 ratings
1 thousand
8th November 2020

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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 

Update 2021-11-11: This app is not on Play Store anymore.

App Description

An exact quote from the App Description:

Finzo Markets Mobile Trading Platform is developed by our specialists that has the most user-friendly interface for online trading and investing on financial markets. This mobile app provides users with such opportunities as trading on the Forex market, Cryptocurreny and CFD.

The Site

On the site we find the following information about withdrawing assets:

To initiate this process clients should log into the members area – click on “Withdrawal fund” and follow the instructions. After you submit withdrawal request, it is processed by Finzo Markets financial team.

A usual withdrawal request takes about 24 hour to be processed. Please note that the office hours of the Financial Department are Monday to Friday, 09:00 - 19:00 (GMT - 4.00). If your withdrawal request is submitted outside these office hours, it will be processed on the next day.

IMPORTANT: you can only withdraw in the same way you deposited to your account. That is if you deposited to your account by bank wire you can only withdraw by bank wire. This is a strict Anti-Money Laundering rule we must follow.

The App

We tried the app and registered. Going to the “Trader’s Room” will give you the option to deposit a variety of assets to start trading. If you choose a “Bitcoin Deposit,” you will be provided with a Bitcoin Address.

The Verdict

While this app does support CFD trading, it is possible to deposit and withdraw Bitcoin in this app, meaning this exchange can hold actual cryptocurrencies.

This platform processes withdrawals, meaning someone can approve or disapprove them. We were not able to locate any settings that allow the backup of a wallet or provide the private keys. Therefore, we conclude that this is a custodial app and thus 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.

But we also ask:

Defunct!

Is the product still supported by the still existing provider?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Not functioning anymore".

Discontinued products or worse, products of providers that are not active anymore, are problematic, especially if they were not formerly reproducible and well audited to be self-custodial following open standards. If the provider hasn’t answered inquiries for a year but their server is still running or similar circumstances might get this verdict, too.