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CoinBene

Latest release: 4.8.6 ( 13th September 2021 ) 🔍 Last analysed 11th September 2021 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys
3.3 ★★★★★
46 ratings
12th November 2018

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Please help us spread the word discussing the risks of centralized custodians with CoinBene  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 

(Analysis from Android review)

Update 2022-01-03: Although there is a replacement app on Google Play, the app still points to the same developer website (coinbene.com), which is still 404 as of today. The telegram channel indicated in the iOS app page, now points to ‘null’

Update 2021-10-01: This app now appears to have a successor on Play Store, CB Global.

Update 2021-09-07: This app is not on Play Store anymore.

CoinBene App is a convenient, professional, safe, stable and reliable global digital currency exchange

CoinBene App is a cryptoasset platform and centralized exchange.

Found in the user agreement:

CoinBene makes no representations or warranties regarding the amount of time that may be required to complete transfer of your Tokens from a third party wallet or other source and have such Tokens become available in your Account.

This is an indicator of its custodial nature.

Furthermore in Section 6 Rights of its User Agreement:

The Site has the right to inquire, freeze or deduct the items and accounts of the user in the account according to the requirements of the judicial organs, administrative organs and military organs including, but not limited to, public security organs, procuratorial organs, courts, customs and tax authorities;

Verdict is therefore 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.