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GCBuying - Sell & exchange Gif

Latest release: 1.0.10 ( 17th September 2021 ) 🔍 Last analysed 2nd November 2022 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys Not updated in a while
3.7 ★★★★★
405 ratings
10 thousand
26th January 2021

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Please help us spread the word discussing the risks of centralized custodians with GCBuying - Sell & exchange Gif  via their Twitter!

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 

Updated Review 2021-10-29

Contact

The last time we made this review, the ‘BTC Wallet’ tab was not functional from the web interface. It is now working.

We were able to access Send and Receive functions. There is also a QR code. Since our web app and the Android app’s BTC address was the same, we assume that the service is synchronizing the details for this wallet.

We now believe this service to be a custodial service. The app cannot be verified.

Old Review 2021-10-19

App Description

The app is a Nigerian-based app that allows users to convert gift cards such as “Amazon, Google Play, iTunes gift card, eBay, Sephora, Nordstrom, Target, Apple store, Vanilla gift card, Visa gift card, Roblox gift card, OffGamers gift card, Google Play gift card or AMEX gift card” to cash.

It is also possible to sell Bitcoin for Naira using the app.

This app is very similar to the following apps:

Prestmit: Gift Cards & Coins No send/receive! TruthX : Sell Gift Cards And B No Wallet

Like the above-mentioned apps

Google Play Critical Reviews

James Turner
★☆☆☆☆ October 11, 2021
Tried to cash out and was told the transaction was suspended. No details on where to go from there and it is still suspended several days later.

Nathaniel Amanor
★☆☆☆☆ October 1, 2021
I sold 5 cards but dey tell the card have been used but was the one who scratch the card but they didn’t give me any money the card are all new

The Site

Sign up can be done via app or via their web portal. User-logins and passwords are synchronized.

We could not find their terms and conditions - clicking on the Terms and Conditions link during registration, does not elicit any response and does not open a link.

There is a tab for ‘BTC Wallet’ but after we clicked on it, the page displayed a server 500 error. We asked GCBuying both on twitter and on their online chat support and await their response.

There is also a tab for Sell Bitcoin with the following fields:

  • Total amount in USD
  • Total amount in BTC
  • You Will Get (N)
  • Please Pay to (BTC Address)
  • Upload Your Transaction Image

Once you fill up ‘Total amount in USD’, the other fields are filled up with their respective conversion rates. The user is then expected to send an amount in BTC to the indicated BTC address. This is verified by uploading an image of the transaction.

Withdrawal is denominated in Naira.

You are also expected to input:

  • Bank Name
  • Account Name
  • Bank Account No

Contact

They’ve responded to our web-chat query:

Hello
BTC wallet Server 500
Do not use your BTC wallet sir
We are working on it
Broken? Okay.

Verdict

Word of Caution: Although there is a lot of positive reviews on Google Play, there is also a growing number of critical reviews. We strongly advise users to do more in-depth due-diligence when they transact with this service.

As noted above, there is a ‘BTC Wallet’ tab, which the user can click, however clicking it, returns a Server 500 error. Even if the app did have a BTC wallet in it, without proof such as tutorials or how-to “deposit/withdraw” bitcoin, we can only go by the evidence that shows that this app does not have a BTC wallet. With that said, we are willing to change this verdict if new information arises.

(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:

Stale!

Was the product updated during the last year?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Not updated in a while".

Bitcoin wallets are complex products and Bitcoin is a new, advancing technolgy. Projects that don’t get updated in a year are probably not well maintained.

This verdict may not get applied if the provider is active and expresses good reasons for not updating the product.

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.