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Burency

Latest release: 1.0.1 ( 23rd March 2021 ) šŸ” Last analysed 5th December 2021 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys Not functioning anymore
4.6 ā˜…ā˜…ā˜…ā˜…ā˜…
25 ratings
20th January 2021

Jump to verdict 

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

Update 2021-11-26: This app is not available anymore.

(Analysis from Android review)

Update 2021-11-22: This app is not available anymore.

App Description

Describes itself as a regulated cryptocurrency exchange

The Site

Terms and Conditions

Section 11 focuses on account termination,

You agree that Burency shall have the right to immediately suspend your account (and any accounts beneļ¬cially owned by related entities or aļ¬ƒliates), freeze or lock the funds in all such accounts, and suspend your access to Burency for any reason including if it suspects any such accounts to be in violation of these Terms, our Privacy Policy, or any applicable laws and regulations.

The App

We downloaded the app, but was unable to find any feature that allows the export of private keys.

Verdict

Any app that has the power to suspend, freeze or lock accounts 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 donā€™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 ā€œcustodialā€ 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 donā€™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 hasnā€™t answered inquiries for a year but their server is still running or similar circumstances might get this verdict, too.