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Bitcoin Global

Latest release: 2.11.2 ( 26th September 2022 ) 🔍 Last analysed 21st October 2021 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys
4.9 ★★★★★
70 ratings
26th October 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 

(Analysis from Android review)

App Description

Bitcoin Global is a P2P platform from the same providers as WhiteBIT – buy & sell bitcoin Custodial!

The app claims that users don’t have to register with KYC.

To register, you don’t need to go through KYC, just enter your email and create the password. After registration, you immediately receive a crypto wallet and you can buy and sell cryptocurrency in a convenient way.

The Site

The site claims that users may exchange directly with no middlemen.

The buyer pays the seller directly, without Bitcoin Global or any other third-parties involved. Once the payment is confirmed, the cryptocurrency is released from escrow to the buyer. Then both traders leave feedback on how the trade went.

From the Privacy Policy:

Bitcoin Global reserves the right to terminate the provision of the service to any user found engaging in activities that violate our Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy.

It’s usually only custodial services that have the ability to freeze funds.

The App

We tried the app and registered. The app had the interface of an exchange. We were provided with a btc address but no mnemonics.

Verdict

We conclude that this app is custodial, 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.
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.