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Paymium - Bitcoin Platform

Latest release: 3.2.8 ( 27th June 2022 ) 🔍 Last analysed 3rd November 2021 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys
4.5 ★★★★★
2 ratings
18th January 2016

Jump to verdict 

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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

  • Check current Bitcoin Price instantly
  • Buy or Sell Bitcoins to react on Market Trends
  • Send Bitcoins to your Family and Friends abroad
  • Get Paid with QR code Bitcoin addresses

Paymium is pioneering Bitcoin services, with tens of thousands of European customers. Paymium.com is the first European Bitcoin marketplace compliant with EU regulations on payment services.

Paymium offers solutions for merchants and payment processors allowing them to accept payments in bitcoins, while avoiding currency risks and reducing transaction costs.

The Site

Terms of Service

Section 7.4. Suspension or termination by PAYMIUM or the BANKING PARTNER

The immediate temporary suspension of an ACCOUNT may be decided by the BANKING PARTNER or by PAYMIUM until the regularization by the CLIENT of his situation toward the BANKING PARTNER, following cases:

  • if the CUSTOMER has not respected the TOS.
  • if the CUSTOMER provided PAYMIUM or the BANKING PARTNER incorrect personal identification information, false with false documents, outdated or incomplete.
  • for any measure regarding AML/CFT.

Reactivation of an ACCOUNT will be at discretion of the BANKING PARTNER.

The CUSTOMER from which an ACCOUNT has been closed by PAYMIUM or at the request of the BANKING PARTNER is not authorized, unless agreed by the BANKING PARTNER or by PAYMIUM, to open a new ACCOUNT. Any ACCOUNT opened in violation of this requirement might be immediately terminated by the BANKING PARTNER or by PAYMIUM, without notice.

The CUSTOMER may withdraw the balance available on his ACCOUNT subject to termination, under reserve of the current operations, possible unpayable losses, or future payment rejections.

PAYMIUM and the BANKING PARTNER reserve the right to demand redress in court for any prejudice sustained after violation of the TOS by the CUSTOMER.

Section 12. Transfer of Bitcoins

PAYMIUM implements all reasonable technical means to ensure the proper execution of transfers of Bitcoins. The CUSTOMER acknowledges, however, that PAYMIUM is not responsible for problems related to the Internet or to the Bitcoin network. In particular, PAYMIUM can not be held responsible for the occurrence of a fork on the Bitcoin blockchain that could invalidate certain past transactions.

Transfer of Bitcoins to an external address that does not belong to the SERVICE shall not be processed in real time but shall be processed several times a day, included week-ends and holidays, with an interval of a few hours. This allows PAYMIUM to proceed to security verifications, to manage the cold storage of the private keys if necessary. PAYMIUM will not be held responsible for any delay in the execution of a transfer during additional or technical verifications.

The App

We downloaded and registered with the service/app. However we were not able to sign-up due to country and KYC restrictions.

Verdict

The service uses cold storage to manage their users’ bitcoins. They require KYC, ID verification and retain custody of the bitcoins. They also have a termination clause that can suspend the user’s account. This service is custodial, and the app is 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.