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OXBTC-Mine Bitcoin, Ethereum & more

Latest release: 2.1.0 ( 14th September 2021 ) 🔍 Last analysed 2nd January 2022 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys Not functioning anymore
3.3 ★★★★★
57 ratings
10 thousand
24th August 2021

Jump to verdict 

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 2022-01-02: This app is no more available.

⚠️ Caution: TrendMicro has an article about fake cloud mining apps on Google Play. Proceed with caution.

App Description

This app claims to be a cloud mining app.

It also has a seemingly discontinued predecessor (from the same developer) with a similar name and description: OXBTC-Mine Bitcoin ,Ethereum & more Development Defunct!

Google Play Critical reviews

Ibrahim Haruna
★☆☆☆☆ October 10, 2021
Rubbish application, It only crashes. You guys needs to fix it, else Google kick it out bcoz it’s useless.

Officer Christian
★☆☆☆☆ October 26, 2021
This App is rubbing application don’t download this app oh….OXBTC is a scammer,,, please be warned oh…I have wasted my Data downloading this App… don’t waste yours and I would’ve rate it zero Star ⭐…if I have the chance to rate it zero Star ⭐

The Site

  • Instead of buying any mining rigs, you can just start your mining journey online from the purchase of cloud mining smart contracts.
  • Free from additional risks such as mining machine failure or poor performance, you can mine with lower maintenance costs yet enjoy stable investment yields.
  • You are saved from the trouble of dealing with waste machines upon contract termination.

Users are encouraged to invest in mining contracts that cost $43.80 per Terahash. They have a calculator that claims to provide x number of bitcoins daily profit based on several factors.

The site has been in existence since 2016.

The App

We downloaded and registered with the oxbtc service. Google Auth 2FA, phone number and passwords were required. There was a Bitcoin wallet with the ability to send and receive. ETH, USDT, LTC and other coins.

There was no App Store app, only testflight.

Verdict

The account that we created was the same on the mobile phone and the web app. The account had deposit and withdrawal features. However, we were not able to find the private key, seed or mnemonics. This is a cloud mining app with a Bitcoin wallet included. The service is custodial which makes the app 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.